Google apologizes after racial slur was seen in BAFTAs news alert
Google apologizes after racial slur was seen in BAFTAs news alert
Taylor Ardrey, USA TODAY Wed, February 25, 2026 at 6:44 PM UTC
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Google has apologized after a news notification about the 2026 BAFTAs contained a racial slur, sparking backlash online.
The tech company's alert, according to Deadline and the BBC, shared an article recapping the incident where Tourette's advocate John Davidson hurled a slur while "Sinners" stars Michael B. Jordan and Delroy Lindo were onstage at the Feb. 22 award show.
Google's message directed users to "see more" and included racially offensive language, per screenshots shared across social media platforms.
In a statement to USA TODAY, a spokesperson said, "We're very sorry for this mistake."
"We’ve removed the offensive notification and are working to prevent this from happening again," the spokesperson continued.
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Oscar hopefuls including Emma Stone ("Bugonia") are stepping out on the red carpet at the 2026 British Academy Film Awards on Sunday, Feb. 22, where "Sinners" and "Once Battle After Another" are vying for best film honors.
2026 BAFTAs: John Davidson condemns racial slur he ticked
What happened at the 2026 BAFTAs?
John Davidson attends the BAFTA Film Awards on Feb. 22, 2026, in London.
Jordan and Lindo were presenting an award for best visual effects at the event, considered the United Kingdom's equivalent of the Oscars, when Davidson yelled the racial slur.
Davidson is the executive producer of the BAFTA-nominated film "I Swear," which is based on his life story.
The 54-year-old advocate has Tourette's with Coprolalia, which involves involuntary outbursts of obscene words or socially inappropriate and derogatory remarks, according to the Tourette Association of America.
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He left his seat after the tic, which he later shared was among several offensive words he said that night.
The outburst was not edited out of the broadcast, which aired on a two-hour delay, and initially remained on the BBC's streaming service.
The incident prompted apologies from Davidson, as well as the BBC and the BAFTAs. However, BAFTA faced widespread criticism over the handling of the matter, resulting in one of its jury members stepping down. Lindo told Vanity Fair that he wished "someone from BAFTA spoke to us afterwards."
Google says 'small subset' of users received notification
Google stated that the company "caught the mistake quickly," adding that "only a very small subset of Google app users who get push notifications received it."
The tech staple cited an issue with its safety filters and clarified that the error was not due to AI, despite previous media reports.
Google said it was working on improving its push notification systems, "which are designed to accurately characterize content from across the web."
"In this case, those systems recognized a euphemism for an offensive term on several web pages, and accidentally applied the offensive term to the notification text," the company explained.
Contributing: Taijuan Moorman, KiMi Robinson, Brendan Morrow, USA TODAY
Taylor Ardrey is a news reporter for USA TODAY. You can reach her at tardrey@usatodayco.com.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Google sorry for 'offensive' BAFTAs news alert
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
