One of pop culture's early but most seminal depictions of gay online dating comes from a 1999 episode of Sex and the City. Stanford Blatch, Carrie Bradshaw's gay friend, played by the late Willie Garson, is seeking advice. He's been chatting to another man on an online chatroom – the height of technology at the time – and wonders whether they should meet up. "What do you know about him?" asks Bradshaw. "Well, his name is bigtool4u" answers Blatch – cue hysterics from Bradshaw.

Apple is refusing to explain how and why the Russian language version of its voice-controlled virtual assistant, Siri, provided homophobic answers to queries relating to gay or lesbian topics. The allegations first came to light when a Russian man called Alex, who lives in London, uploaded a video to YouTube appearing to show Siri either evading questions or expressing a negative response. Alex asked questions such as: "Are there any gay bars around me?", "tell me about gay marriage?" "I would have turned red if I could", "you are so rude!" and "I will pretend I haven't heard". These responses seem to suggest that the word gay () in Russian has been programmed as profanity. Swear words in the English language version receive similar responses.