Google came under huge fire recently as it was noticed that Palestine was gone from it’s popular Google Maps services.

It was slammed by many such as the Palestinian Journalists’ Forum who released a statement saying that it was “part of the Israeli scheme to establish its name as a legitimate state for generations to come and abolish Palestine once and for all.” and that “The move is also designed to falsify history, geography as well as the Palestinian people’s right to their homeland.”

Google were quite quick to respond to the backlash and claimed it was a bug (seriously?). They made it clear that Palestine has actually never been labelled on their map! But that West Bank and Gaza labels had disappeared because of a bug that they were trying to rectify.

This is all highly political and in many senses we could say that the Israel-Palestine mess has nothing to do with black people!

But it does. Google is one of the most influential entities on this planet and through it’s search engines and services gets to decide what billions of us see.

They can choose to feature or repress true history, push political agendas and shape public opinion.

Israel and Palestine’s issue sit next to Africa and also bleed into the continent. Jew’s from Africa claim they are rightful, Arab’s want the right to exist, it’s all struggles that we can relate to and are related.

If Google can remove Gaza and West Bank and call it a bug, what else can they remove? Will they selectively repress black history from search because it suits them politically? Does this happen already?

Would love your thoughts on all this….