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Google Apologizes For "Michelle Obama" Results
theodp writes "CNN reports that for most of the past week, when someone did a Google image search for 'Michelle Obama,' one of the first images that came up was a picture of the First Lady altered to resemble a monkey. After being hit with a firestorm of criticism over the episode, Google first banned the site that posted the photo, saying it could spread malware. Then, when the image appeared on another site, Google displayed the photo in its search results, but displayed an apologetic Google ad above it. On Wednesday morning, the racially offensive image appeared to have been removed from any Google Image searches for 'Michelle Obama.' Google officials could not immediately be reached for comment."
Update — 15:38 GMT by SS: A reader pointed out that this article from the Guardian says the image was de-listed simply because it was removed from the blog where it was hosted rather than by any "deliberate" action from Google.
At the moment it suggests searching for "Michelle Obama monkey" when you search for "Michelle Obama"
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No one complained when Bush was made to look a monkey
They never did that for the "Bush chimp" pictures.
Since when is Google responsible for the content on the Internet?? I thought it just showed what was there, no matter what.
Google *should* just index what it finds, and thats what originally happened here...
There are thousands of sites out there hosting insulting pictures of george bush, some where he looks like a monkey or is compared to one and some where he's likened to adolf hitler... If you're going to do something that makes you famous, then you will attract a huge amount of attention and inevitably some of it will be bad. That is well known up front and you can't go crying about it when it happens. Noone forced obama to stand, and now that he's won there will be a lot of attention given to him and his family, if he doesn't like that he should have thought about it before.
Incidentally, when i woke up this morning i had no plans whatsoever to look for pictures of michelle obama on the internet, but having read this story i went looking for the picture in question and i'm sure a lot of other people will do the same. Had i stumbled across such pictures by accident without having read this story i probably wouldn't have thought anything of it because there are countless other derogatory pictures of famous people out there.
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why is that picture "racially offensive"?
because the portrayed person is black?
what if it was made by a black person?
do we know it wasn't made by a black person?
would it be racially offensive it it portrayed a white person and was made by a black person?
if we want to reach REAL equality between all races, this also means we mustn't go nuts about an insult to a person from one race while not caring about the same insult to a person from another race (remember the bush/chimpanzee pictures?)
The MAFIAA is a bunch of mindless jerks who will be the first up against the wall when the revolution comes
Humans are one species of ape, so of course there are clear similarities in appearance (and differences also, chiefly that humans are nearly bald over most of their bodies). For instance, we can recognize a wide range of facial expressions in apes, and associate them with comparable expressions in humans. These similarities are stronger or weaker depending on the moment, but exist for any human individual. Exploiting the similarity to parody a public figure as an ape or monkey is commonplace, and should be considered just another form of fair comment. This is not a race-specific issue - it applies equally across the board.
Google's conduct in cowing to politically motivated whiners is reprehensible. It is apparently acceptable to compare George W Bush or Steve Ballmer to monkeys (or chimps, or whatever) in words or pictures as social or political comment. Tony Blair mostly got poodle comparisons, but there's probably a few monkey ones around also. RMS would be fair game as an ape, too, although he typically gets cave-man or neanderthal comparisons. The US cannot consider itself color-blind or non-racist until the same gamut of insults can be levelled at any public figure without fear of censorship or witch-hunting.
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
You can only take it.
Say what you want about the Right (and being an equal opportunity center-of-the-aisle kind of snark, I've said a lot...), they have much thicker skins than the Left, I've noticed. Every joke made about the current administration can never really be just a joke about the current administration, it's either borne of "racism" or a "disturbing indication of a growing violence and unrest." The recent SNL stuff is making my leftie friends apoplectic; when the same show skewered Bush and Cheney, my rightie friends were, like, "SNL? Is that still on?"
Sure, it's all anecdotal, but you know I'm correct.
I think that righties don't mind being un-hip. Many even carry it as a "badge of honor." (I am reminded here of bowtie-wearing Conservative pundit Tucker Carlson.) The lefties are mortified that they might somehow be un-cool, and that the Stewarts/Colberts/SNLs/Lettermans will turn on them. They need to be "in" on the joke, and not the butt of it, and if they ARE the butt of it, well, it can't really be a joke then, can it? It must be sedition and racism...
If I do a GIS for "Laura Bush" on the very first page is a photoshopped picture of her naked. If I do a GIS for "George Bush" on the very first page is a picture of him eating a kitten, three pictures of him giving the finger, one picture making him look like a monkey, one picture making him look like some kind of ogre and one picture of a bush impersonator being spanked on his bare bottom. I think some are being overly sensitive here. Michelle Obama is an intelligent and successful woman, I think she can handle a corny picture on the internet.
It is morally reprehensible to vote racist.
But, clearly, not reprehensible in the United States of America to campaign on a platform of your ethnicity as was evidenced in the last major presidential election?
If you are a racist, then you cannot, by definition, be a democrat
Clearly your definition of racism is different from mine. I view racism as any act that distinguishes somebody on their race. By that definition I would say nearly all democrats are "racist" as they use race as one of their election platforms (a truly non-racist party would not need to promote equality legislation that distinguishes race as a factor). Neither would they feel the need to denigrate anyone in opposition to their candidate as "morally reprehensible racists". The fact is that if both Republicans and Democrats put up candidates of identical race there would still be votes for both. It is clear that Democrats, therefore, are an extremely racist party by any definition.
As a foreign viewer of the American presidential race I was astounded to the extent that self-promotion based on race was a factor.
That isn't racism, its human nature.
Just because something is part of human nature, does not mean it's not racist.. in fact it's the natural human "us/them" mentality that causes racism, sports related violence, religious wars and all that good stuff :/ I suppose it also drives things like capitalism.
Basically we are social animals, and need to feel we belong. On top of that, a lot of people like to believe that what they belong to is better than everything else.
It will be nice when everyone can think of "us" as the whole of humanity. Until we as a species have a more natural enemy (whether real or imagined) than other humans, things will probably continue to suck.
which is totally what she said