Google Apologises After News Notification Contained Racial Slur

February 22, 2026 – BAFTA Awards Incident

During the 2026 EE British Academy Film Awards, an audience member with Tourette’s syndrome involuntarily shouted a racial slur while actors Michael B. Jordan and Delroy Lindo were presenting an award. The moment was captured on the taped broadcast and later aired by the BBC. Organisers of the awards later apologised to those affected and acknowledged the distress caused by the unedited broadcast of the incident.

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February 24–25, 2026 – Offensive Google Notification Sent

Google sent a push notification to a subset of users of its news app referencing a story about the BAFTA incident. The alert included an unedited racial slur in its text and invited readers to “see more” on the topic. Screenshots of the notification circulated widely on social media, drawing attention to the error.

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Google Clarification on System Error

Some observers suggested the notification may have been generated by artificial intelligence. Google clarified that the issue was not AI-generated. According to the company, its content systems identified a euphemistic reference to the slur across multiple web pages and mistakenly inserted the explicit term into the notification text. Google stated that its safety filters did not trigger as intended.

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Public Apology and Follow-Up

Google issued a formal apology, confirming that the notification had been removed and stating that the alert “shouldn’t have happened.” The company said it is implementing measures to strengthen its content safeguards to prevent similar incidents. The event prompted discussion about content moderation in automated news distribution systems and the challenges of filtering sensitive language in push notifications.

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How Push Notifications Work

Push notifications are short alerts sent directly to a user’s device by an application or platform. News notifications are generally generated automatically by systems that analyse published articles, trending topics, and user preferences. The systems create brief text summaries for users who have opted in to receive alerts.

Content moderation filters are intended to prevent offensive language from appearing in notifications. When these filters do not function correctly, content from source material may appear without additional editing. Google confirmed that the notification in question resulted from a failure within its filtering system and that corrective measures are being implemented.

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