Google apologizes for mysterious disappearance of Winston Churchill’s image

The tech giant attempted to cover for itself by saying that there was nothing untoward aimed at Churchill, but that there was a glitch that made his image temporarily unavailable, according to Newsweek.

Speculation spread across social media that suggested the image's disappearance was tied to Churchill's statue being boarded up in London's Parliament Square as a response to vandals tearing down statues around the world.

Some have accused Black Lives Matter (BLM) for targeting the statue, which was graffitied with the words "is a racist" at a previous BLM protest.

"We're aware an image for Sir Winston Churchill is missing from his Knowledge Graph entry on Google," Google said. "This was not purposeful and will be resolved. Images in such panels are automatically created & updated. During an update, they can briefly disappear.

"If a Knowledge Graph image is missing due to an update, the subject will be named but lack an image in anything automatically generated from the Knowledge Graph. This is why Churchill's image (but not his name) is missing from some lists."

"The image issue only applies to Knowledge Graph-generated information. Many images of Churchill are easily found through both web and image searching on Google."

Google added that something similar had happened with British prime ministers such as Ramsey MacDonald, Stanley Baldwin, and Harold Wilson.

"We're exploring why the first terms for Churchill, Wilson, MacDonald and Baldwin are not shown. It might be that our systems are only displaying the last term of prime ministers who had non-consecutive terms. We'll seek to address this to avoid any unintentional concern."

An updated from Google confirmed that the image had been reinstalled and available to view.

"Again, this was not purposeful," Google tweeted. "Our apologies for the concerns caused."

A number of BLM protests were cancelled in London on Saturday amid fears that there would be clashes with far-right groups who planned to arrive at the same time, expressing their intentions to protect Churchill's statue from vandals.

A total of 113 were arrested as demonstrators fought with police in central London. Almost 24 officers were injured as a result.

"The scenes officers encountered across central London yesterday were utterly shocking. Once again, they were pelted with missiles, or challenged by groups of men intent on violence," Bas Javid, Metropolitan Police Commander, said.

"Mindless hooliganism such as this is totally unacceptable and I am pleased arrests were made. We will now work closely with the courts in pursuit of justice.

"I would like to thank those officers who showed enormous bravery in confronting violent behaviour, including our colleagues from British Transport Police and the City of London Police."