Google was among the California-based tech companies that donated $1 million to President Donald Trump’s inauguration. Then, in a major departure from its diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, it scrapped its diversity hiring targets.
These combined moves suggest Google is paving the way for a better relationship with Trump. But Google didn’t stop there. Recently, Google customers said they noticed that a slate of updates have been made to everyday tools like Google Maps and Google Calendars.
According to CNBC, Google’s popular calendars no longer tell users the story of Black History Month (February) or Women’s History Month (March), among other historical dates. Other observances, such as Jewish American Heritage Month (May), Pride Month (June), and Indigenous Peoples Month (November), are no longer noted on Google Calendar, either. Neither is Holocaust Remembrance Day (Jan. 27).
Donald Trump
Silicon Valley’s one-time anger toward the president is hard to imagine today. Now, these tech companies have all but reversed course and are bending over backward to show their deference to dear ’ol Don. These most recent moves, in particular, show the tech industry’s complete genuflection to Trump.
What’s gone unsaid, though, is that the removal of these national observances disproportionately affects people of color and those from marginalized communities, especially since many other major national holidays were untouched.
The Verge first noted these Google Calendar removals last week, following user comments.
As one Google user said, “I cannot seem to find a way to express my anger at Google for the changes they’ve made to Google Calendar and maps. It’s utterly ridiculous, and I’ll be moving away from using Google for much of anything anymore.”
Another echoed a similar sentiment and called Google “cowardly.”
“Cowardly of Google to not only do this but also not have a direct support email or something,” they wrote.
A Google spokesperson told the outlet that the changes were made for practical reasons and had been planned for months.
“For over a decade, we’ve worked with timeanddate.com to show public holidays and national observances in Google Calendar,” Google spokesperson Madison Cushman Veld said. “Some years ago, the Calendar team started manually adding a broader set of cultural moments in a wide number of countries around the world.”
The spokesperson added that Google received “feedback that some other events and countries were missing—and maintaining hundreds of moments manually and consistently globally wasn’t scalable or sustainable.”
The news regarding Google Calendar comes during a period when Trump is trying to tamp down or punish companies that embrace DEI. As a result, companies such as Google and Meta are rapidly scaling down. On its own, Google’s excuse may have been passable. But this isn’t the first or even the second time it has adopted new positions that are in line with Trump’s goals.
In January, for instance, the company said it would change the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the “Gulf of America” in Google Maps for U.S. users after Trump ordered the nation’s authorities to make the change to official maps in an executive order he signed on Day 1. This officially went into effect on Monday and MAGA, of course, is ecstatic.
Only users in the U.S. will see the “Gulf of America,” though. Users in Mexico will continue to see the Gulf of Mexico, while people in the rest of the world will see both names, with the Gulf of Mexico appearing first.
When it comes to calendar dates, users can manually add these events back, but this is a cheap and lazy solution. After all, keeping these dates front and center makes them more visible and accessible for everyone—not just those who choose to put them on their personal calendars.
It’s unlikely Google will add these days back, as they have not shown a want to restore any of the removed observances. But the company’s choice to acquiesce to Trump is another sign of Big Tech playing along with the new administration. And there’s no end in sight.
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