Google 'glitch' sees Winston Churchill's photo vanish from search results amid demands to remove his UK statue
The photo of Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965), Britain’s celebrated wartime prime minister who is also accused of being a racist villain, disappeared mysteriously from Google’s list of the country’s prime ministers overnight. The incident happened at a time when Churchill’s statue is being targeted as part of the Black Lives Matter protests that have spread worldwide in the wake of the killing of a black American in Minneapolis last month.
A number of statues of past leaders with racist records have been toppled on both sides of the Atlantic. The British government has tried to protect the former premier’s statue in Westminster from being torn down by putting it inside a box. Churchill, who served as the prime minister of Britain twice (1940-45 and 1951-55), was the only post-holder to have been left without a photo while those of Clement Attlee, Neville Chamberlain and Stanley Baldwin, who had served before him and in between his two terms, could still be found.
The search engine giant clarified that the image disappeared because of an update and assured the issue would be resolved “as rapidly as possible”. The picture remained absent for around 12 hours.
In a series of tweets, Google’s liaison arm explained: “We’re aware an image for Sir Winston Churchill is missing from his Knowledge Graph entry on Google. We apologize for any concern. This was not purposeful & will be resolved. Images in such panels are automatically created & updated. During an update, they can briefly disappear….”
Google users said the picture was being pulled from Wikipedia as a default. The picture, however, remained visible on the Wikipedia website and Google restored the picture later. It apologized again later.
The disappearance of Churchill’s online picture happened at a time when a dispute is escalating whether his memorial should remain in London’s Parliament Square as the BLM demonstrators have been seeking to bring it down. Clashes occurred over the weekend between far-right activists, BLM protesters and the riot police in Trafalgar Square and Waterloo Station with the far-right camp vowing to protect the iconic statesman’s monument. More than 100 people were arrested.
Boris Johnson slams protesters targeting Churchill statue
British PM Boris Johnson came to the defense of his predecessor saying it was “absurd and deplorable” that Churchill’s monument was at risk of being targeted. In a piece in The Telegraph, Johnson wrote: “If we start purging the record and removing the images of all but those whose attitudes conform to our own, we are engaged in a great lie, a distortion of our history.”
Twenty-nine-year-old Imarn Ayton, who gave speeches alongside 'Star Wars' actor John Boyega in support of the BLM movement, said on Saturday, June 13, that the monument is offensive and should be moved to a museum. She told BBC Radio 4: “I believe these statues should be moved to a museum I think it's a win-win for everyone.”
Churchill’s grand-daughter Emma Soames said after seeing his statue getting daubed with “was a racist” that if people were so angry with it, it may be “safer” in a museum. Nicholas Soames, his grandson, though condemned any attempt to move the statue from the spot the former PM himself had chosen before his death in 1965. He told LBC: "All his life he fought fascism."
Google users world over were not impressed with the disappearance of Churchill’s image from the search engine and called it “disgraceful” and “disgusting”. It was also being questioned why images of other world leaders who are known to be tyrants -- including Adolf Hiter and Joseph Stalin -- were still on display.
Churchill had given a bold leadership to Britain during the Second World War when Nazi Germany had relentlessly bombarded his country. He had joined hands with the US led by Roosevelt and the erstwhile Soviet Union led by Stalin to defeat Hitler’s Germany.