Behind the Michelle Obama Google Controversy

If an offensive picture shows up in Google search results, should the company be responsible for removing it? What if the image is of someone famous? Google was forced to answer these questions recently after a crudely doctored image of the First Lady of the United States, Michelle Obama, began appearing in Google Image search.

The racist picture, which characterizes First Lady Obama as a monkey, has appeared in Google Image search results for much of the past week. At first, Google banned the website that was hosting the image saying that the site could infect computers with malware. After the image appeared on a different website, however, Google has declined to take any formal action other than offering an apology and explanation of Google’s search algorithms above the picture.

Why is Google deferring this time around? Charles Arthur of The Guardian explained in a recent blog post:

Because Google doesn’t want to be seen to be making choices; that would put it into the middle of every battle fought by every special interest group everywhere. Hence: “We do not remove a page from our search results simply because its content is unpopular or because we receive complaints concerning it.” The company has already tackled the issue once before, over the search results for the word “Jew”, which found all sorts of racist sites.

Only legal action – by the authorities (because the US first amendment allows Google to republish “legal” speech, making it proof against civil action) – can get a page taken out of the index.

The reason that Google has made it to the top of the web world is because it returns the most relevant results…usually. As we’ve seen with this Michelle Obama case, and with John McCain before her, with the right technical knowhow and a little bit of time, Google results can be manipulated. Still, just because the system can be gamed, does that mean Google should change the system?

If Google were to take personal responsibility everytime someone had a grievance with their search results, the site would slow to a crawl. However, that doesn’t mean that Google is in perfect condition as is. As the world becomes more web literate, “Googlebombs” are bound to become more commonplace. The way that Google decides to handle these issues going forward will say a lot about the company and truly test their “Don’t Be Evil” mantra.