A blog hosted by Google's free Blogger service has apologized for the photo of Obama and taken it offline.
(WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) — An edited picture of the First Lady with monkey features has been removed from a Google-hosted blog after topping its image searches for the string “Michelle Obama.”
According to a report from the Guardian, “Hot Girls,” a blog hosted by Google’s free Blogger service, has apologized for the photo of Obama and taken it offline.
“Google had refused to remove the offensive image from its picture search listings, despite complaints that it is racist, instead opting to run an ad next to it explaining its policy on how search engine results work,” the Guardian reported. A Google spokesperson told the newspaper that the image may still appear online temporarily as it is removed from the Google Images search indexing system.
“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,” reads the response posted by Google. “Individual citizens and public interest groups do periodically urge us to remove particular links or otherwise adjust search results. Although Google reserves the right to address such requests individually, Google views the integrity of our search results as an extremely important priority. Accordingly, we do not remove a page from our search results simply because its content is unpopular or because we receive complaints concerning it. We will, however, remove pages from our results if we believe the page (or its site) violates our Webmaster Guidelines, if we believe we are required to do so by law, or at the request of the webmaster who is responsible for the page.”
Google’s hands-off approach is not without precedent. In 2004, Google took a similar approach with the search results for “jew,” which for a period of time returned hate site “Jewwatch” as the top-ranked site.
While Google argues that it is not responsible for the search results it delivers, the fact that it was hosting the hateful image of Obama complicates the matter. Ignoring the search issue altogether, some would argue that Google was indirectly responsible for the offensive material because of its hosting services.
