Did Google Change the Definition of Demon to Police Officer?
An image recently started to circulate around social media of a Google Definition of the term “demon” stating its definition was;
“a police officer”
This at first seems like another step from the search engine, to instil it’s Political Beliefs and Anti-Police rhetoric. However a littler deeper digging shows it isn’t as bad as it seems.
First of all, if you look at the tag above the definition, it says “AUSTRALIAN/NZ” this is the first red flag. The screenshot was being spread from American and English accounts and not anyone affiliated with Australia and New Zealand. The fact the definition is from AU and NZ suggests a cultural difference in the English language.
Second of all if you look at the Origin it shows the Australian slang term “Dee” that is stated as a slang term for a Detective. It also show’s a list of the different words that listed as the origin for “demon”.
However I checked a database on Wikipedia on Police-Related slang terms worldwide and it did NOT state the term “Diemen” — “dee” — “man”. I checked other databases for any of the listed terms.
I tried to run the dictionary definition through the Way Back Machine but it came back with nothing. I have found fairly equal arguments for malicious politics, a genuine definition or a simple issue with Google’s auto definition process. But until Google response, we can just hope it’s not malicious politics.
