Google apologises after Winston Churchill photo disappears from search of British prime ministers
GOOGLE has apologised after Winston Churchill’s photo disappeared from their timeline of British prime ministers.
Pictures of all the other PMs loaded as normal, but a black box appeared where the wartime leader’s face should have been.
Churchill's vanishing act came after his statue in London had to be boarded up over fears it would be targeted once more by protesters.
His picture also did not show up on the English language version of Google, users reported.
Some were quick to point out photographs of Hitler were coming up as normal on the search engine.
Google apologised for the mistake, and revealed the image was not removed on purpose.
A company spokesperson said: “At the end of April, we received feedback that the image of Winston Churchill automatically selected by our systems wasn’t representative of him.
"The systems had selected a picture of a young Winston Churchill, while he’s more famously and iconically pictured when older.
"Following our standard procedures, human reviewers processed the feedback, determined that the image displayed wasn’t the most representative of Churchill, and we blocked the unrepresentative image to allow the systems to automatically select a different one.
"However, in this case, an error in our systems prevented a new, more representative image from being selected.
"We apologise for any concern caused by this error, and we will be working to address the underlying cause to avoid this type of issue in the future."
Brits fumed when they first noticed the error, with some thinking it was related to attempts to remove his statue in London.
Barrister Ian Bond tweeted: “Hitler, Stalin and Mussolini survive, but Google feels the need to remove the picture of WINSTON CHURCHILL!
“The words I have for this are unpublishable.”
Emily Hewertson tweeted: "Just to clarify: removing a photo of Winston Churchill from Google won’t end racism."
Dr Craig Buchanan added: "I thought this was a photoshopped wind-up when I saw it on FB, but no - go check for yourselves if you don’t believe me.
"Google has removed Churchill’s picture from its list of UK Prime Ministers."
I will resist with every breath in my body any attempt to remove that statue from Parliament Square, and the sooner his protective shielding comes off the better.
Boris Johnson
The wartime leader’s statue had to be boarded up this weekend over fears that it would be vandalised by protesters in Westminster.
Boris Johnson has since vowed to fight any attempt to remove Churchill’s Parliament Square tribute “to his last breath”.
Writing in the today, the PM also warned against attempts to “photoshop” Britain’s culture.
“I will resist with every breath in my body any attempt to remove that statue from Parliament Square, and the sooner his protective shielding comes off the better,” he wrote.
"It is not just that it is wrong to destroy public property by violence.
"I am also extremely dubious about the growing campaign to edit or photoshop the entire cultural landscape.
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"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, like some public figure furtively trying to make themselves look better by editing their own Wikipedia entry."
Mr Johnson added that while Churchill had views “which are totally unacceptable to modern ears”, he “changed with the times”.
Responding to the weekend’s protests, the PM promised that he would set up a commission to look at inequality in the UK, saying the country has “much more” to do.
Insult to ancestors
By Sir Geoff Palmer
WHEN Google wiped out Winston Churchill’s picture, people were understandably angry.
If it was a deliberate decision, it was as misguided as people defacing the wartime leader’s statue in Parliament Square.
I do not support anybody vandalising anything in any country.
Had a group of black people taken down the statue of slave trader Edward Colston in Bristol last year, they’d still be in jail.
But because it was taken down by black and white activists in the wake of the death of George Floyd, police say it is OK.
My ancestors fought slave owners. Now you’re telling me I can’t walk past a piece of metal in the image of one? This is an insult to our ancestors.
What I want is plaques placed on these statues which give the facts about the slave trade.
