Amazon Alexa forces woman to change daughter’s name

A woman has changed her daughter’s name from Alexa after she was bullied at school for having the same moniker as the Amazon Echo.

Both the Amazon Echo and Dot are automatically set-up to respond to the word, which prompts them to carry out the wishes of the person addressing it. But the girl’s mother, who wishes to remain anonymous, says having the name Alexa caused her daughter a huge amount of grief.

And she has even called on Amazon to "change the default wake word on its devices" after things got so bad she moved her daughter to a new school to escape the abuse.   

She told BBC news: “She started to not want to introduce herself because of the jokes and the backlash. She was and still is a child, yet adults thought it was okay to make a joke of her. It's devastating. The school was unhelpful and told her she needed to build resilience.

"She's in a much better place now. We have cut off friends and moved her to a new school to allow a fresh start. The injustice will never leave her or us. Amazon must change the default wake word on its devices. There was clearly not enough ethical research into using Alexa." 

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