Winston Churchill’s picture has disappeared from Google’s list of British prime ministers as protesters call for his statue to be torn down.
The wartime leader is the only prime minister to be left without a photo.
Clement Attlee, Neville Chamberlain and Stanley Baldwin, who all served before Churchill, are still displayed with their images.
It comes amid an escalating row over whether Churchill should be commemorated in parliament square.
Black Lives Matter figurehead Imarn Ayton, 29, who has given speeches alongside Star Wars actor John Boyega, said yesterday the monument is offensive and should be moved to a museum.
And his granddaughter Emma Soames, after seeing the statue daubed with ‘was a racist’, said that if people were ‘so infuriated’ it may be ‘safer’ in a museum.
Google has claimed the image disappeared due to an update, and said it would be resolved ‘as rapidly as possible’.
His image is not showing up in the UK, US, Australia, South Africa, and other countries, according to social media users.
Its absence has been slammed as ‘disgraceful’ and ‘disgusting’ online, especially as its timing coincides with anti-racism protests in the UK.
A request to Google for information on why the image has been removed read: ‘The images on the search results are taken from Wikipedia, it’s not clear to me why this would break in only the UK and the US.
‘It’s especially interesting given the current controversy around Churchill in our countries. Even more interesting is that pictures of Hitler, Stalin and Mao are shown with no issues.’
A platinum product expert for Google responded saying the image appears to be a ‘default’, although it is unclear why Churchill’s is absent.
Google SearchLiaison said in a statement: ‘We’re aware an image for Sir Winston Churchill is missing from his Knowledge Graph entry on Google. We apologise for any concern. This was not purposeful and will be resolved.
‘Images in such panels are automatically created and updated. During an update, they can briefly disappear.
‘We don’t have an exact time for when Churchill’s Knowledge Graph image will be restored, but it will be as rapidly done as possible.’
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