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When referee Nigel Owens called a penalty Saturday in a Six Nations rugby match between Scotland and England, this is how the BBC’s closed captioning system rendered what the announcers were saying:
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Oops! The text was quickly corrected to “Nigel Owens is saying ...” But the funny thing is that Owens actually is “a gay.” He came out in 2007 and is one of the top referees in the sport.
The BBC explained how the mistake was made:
Our live subtitling service produces accuracy levels in excess of 98%. But, as with all broadcasters, there are instances — particularly during live broadcasts — when mistakes happen. On this occasion the voice recognition subtitling software made an error which was spotted and corrected immediately.
Owens took the error in stride and had a good laugh:
I must say I had a giggle when I saw this. I thought bloody hell this voice recognition is good. Shame it wasn't about 25yrs ago it would have helped me find out who I truly was sooner then. Mistakes happen so no worries at all on my behalf BBC it actually made me smile. https://t.co/WdawxHNGY5
— Nigel Owens MBE (@Nigelrefowens) February 27, 2018
