Google’s online and mobile calendars no longer feature Black History Month, Women’s History Month, and LGBTQ+ Holidays.
Previously, the world’s largest search engine acknowledged the beginning of Black History Month in February and Pride Month in June, but they will not be included in 2025.
The removal of these holidays was first reported by The Verge last week.
Google spokesperson Madison Cushman Veld shared a statement with The Guardian stating that the listed holidays were not “sustainable” for the model.
“A few years ago, the calendar team started manually adding broader cultural moments in many countries worldwide. It was noted that several other events and countries were missing, making it unsustainable to maintain hundreds of moments globally. So, in mid-2024, we decided to only display public holidays and national compliance from Timeanddate.com worldwide, allowing users to manually add other important moments,” the statement said.
The decision to remove black, LGBTQ+ and women’s holidays is another change by Google following Donald Trump’s second presidency.
Recently, Google announced a rollback of previous commitments to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives in employment policy following an order by the US President to end DEI in federal agencies.
Google also revealed that US users will now be referred to as “American Gulf,” following an executive order by Trump to rename Alaska’s mountains to “Mount McKinley”. The company announced the name change for US users will take effect on Monday.
Many users on social media have expressed disappointment and frustration at Google’s latest decision. Users who wish to track events like Pride Month, Black History Month, and Indigenous Month will need to manually add them to their calendar.
Google assured The Guardian that changes to the calendars will not impact future Google Doodles, which typically celebrate these events with digital artwork on the website’s homepage. The company stated, “Google continues to actively celebrate and promote our cultural moments as a company,” and offers a Black History Month Playlist on YouTube Music.
Source: www.theguardian.com
