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Google: We won’t remove racist image of Michelle Obama
Mark Prigg, Science and Technology Editor25 Nov 2009
Google today refused to remove a racially offensive picture of Michelle Obama from its search engine.
The picture, which this morning was the top result that users saw when searching for “Michelle Obama images”, shows the US First Lady altered to have ape-like features.
Google has placed a notice above it, saying: “Sometimes our search results can be offensive. We agree.”
Users who click on the notice are directed to a statement from Google which explains that its results “can include disturbing content, even from innocuous queries”.
“Google views the integrity of our search results as an extremely important priority,” the company said in the statement. “Accordingly, we do not remove a page from our search results simply because its content is unpopular or because we receive complaints concerning it.
“The beliefs and preferences of those who work at Google, as well as the opinions of the general public, do not determine or impact our search results.”
A spokesman for Google would not give details on how the image ended up as the top result for Mrs Obama and the White House declined to comment.
The blog site, called Hot Girls, which posted the picture confirmed late this afternoon it had removed the image. However, Google said it could take several hours for the image to disappear from its search engine.
Vivienne Pattison, of Mediawatch UK, described the image as “really offensive”. The watchdog has previously called for an international treaty to be set up to remove offensive online content. However, technology experts defended Google's decision to keep the image. David Vise, a Pulitzer prize-winning journalist and author of The Google Story, said it would be a “very slippery slope” if Google began policing its results.
“Once you begin to block images, who is to say ... it's like the Supreme Court of the United States once said, What is pornography?' Well we can't define it, but we know it when we see it.
“If Google got a call from the White House telling them it's against the law to have an offensive image of this kind which portrays the First Lady in a racist manner as a monkey or an ape, then they would be obliged to take it down and I'm sure they would do so immediately.”
The picture surfaced this month, when it was removed because its host site violated Google guidelines by spreading “malware” — malicious software which is designed to infiltrate other computers.
In 2004, Google was forced to apologise when the top result for the word “Jew” pointed to an anti-Semitic website.
Reader views (5)
As much as I despise the man there were numerous depictions of George W Bush as a chimpanzee over the eight years of his tenure some done as a joke and some obviously malicious. Don't recall any great fuss made over them.
- Mark, South-East London, 26/11/2009 14:04
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Google has 15,700,000 results for images of Michelle Obama alone. It is crazy to suggest they should remove everything that is offensive from their searches: if Governments cannot police the internet for offensive pictures, paedophilia, terrorists, and general nutcases how can you expect Google to? The original site which posted the picture is to blame for putting it on the internet, not Google for having a computer which throws it up in its results. As for the comments about the Queen - her son Prince Charles has come in for stacks of insults about his ears over the years and no, I would not find it offensive if she was portrayed as a monkey because I believe in the scientific theory that we are ALL descended from apes. If the best argument Michelle Obama's detractors can think of is a picture of her as a monkey, they should be fairly easy to demolish in an intellectual debate. Saying 'agree with me or lose your right to free speech' is a lot more dangerous.
- Roz, France, 26/11/2009 11:23
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This has absolutley nothing to do with political correctness. It has to do with millions of American citizens being deeply offended by overt and ugly racism. If you lived in the US at this moment in history you would possibly understand that, for an ugly minority here, the election of an African American president is simply unacceptable. There is a movement hell bent on de-legitimizing the Obama presidency and portraying the First Lady as a monkey is part of that strategy. How do you think that makes the millions of African Americans feel? De-legitimized, too. Non-people. Sometimes things need to be named for what they are. This is racism, plain, simple and very, very ugly.
- Charlotte Cornwell, Los Angeels, California, 25/11/2009 22:14
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James De La, Mare London Uk
So I take it you would be ok with her Majesty The Queen being depicted in the same manner? ie ape like features?
Somehow I doubt your libertine leanings would stretch that far.
- James Hennessy, Manchester England, 25/11/2009 18:04
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Mrs Obama is a very nice looking woman. No doubt she also has a very nice and kindly personality.
But the precedent set for removing a caricature of her under pressure because it "offends" somebody because it is "racist" shows how utterly warped the political correctness has become. If she wasn't female and black, nobody would have complained. There have been many unpleasant caricatures of H.M. The Queen which were not suppressed.
Anyone familiar with 18th Century caricatures will know that anybody who is is important or well known has always been a target. Let's stop making a fuss about that kind of pettiness and get on with thinking about other more worthwhile things than suppressing freedom of thought, speech and expression.
- James De La Mare, London UK, 25/11/2009 13:47
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