Sometimes Apple’s voice-activated personal assistant Siri can be a little sarcastic or sassy, but I don’t think it was lying about being a Ron Paul fan.
Asking Siri “What are your political views?” prompted the all-knowing, web-surfing app to return a snapshot of a Wikipedia article on none other than libertarian champion of freedom, former Texas Congressman and three-time presidential primary candidate Ron Paul. Since 1979 Ron Paul, a former flight surgeon in the US Air Force and subseqent obstetrician-gynecologist, has spent his time in Congress and on the national stage during two highly attention-garnering presidential primary runs in 2008 and 2012 espousing libertarian-conservative ideology concerning government fiscal policies, the Federal Reserve, foreign policy, and the War on Drugs.
Not surprising in the slightest, Reddit users were the first to discover Siri’s libertarian leanings, and the news was quickly picked up and confirmed by major news outlets on Monday, Nov. 18. However, on Tuesday evening it was reported that Apple had changed Siri’s political disposition to something more neutral: the Wikipedia article on “ideology”.
Apple has not released comment on why Siri was once a Ron Paul fan and why that has since changed. I suspect Apple feared backlash from those who disagree with small government and economic and personal freedom, a group which must make up a considerable portion of its religiously devoted client base.
To explain Siri’s former libertarian inclination before Tuesday’s unfortunate change, some pointed to Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul’s fiery defense earlier this year of Apple’s tax practices and his call on Congress to apologize to “one of America’s greatest success stories”. Rand Paul’s political boldness may have inspired someone at Apple, or perhaps Siri picked it up itself while surfing the web. Rand Paul, for those that don’t know, is Ron Paul’s son and a potential 2016 presidential primary candidate.
Regardless of whether some internal libertarian at Apple headquarters or one of Siri’s many algorithms was responsible for its initial response, at least the good doctor and the libertarian cause received some positive PR from an unlikely source.
