NEW DELHI: Google today responded to the controversy that its search engine has been showing Pakistani flag when searched for the “best toilet paper in the world”, the “best China-made toilet paper” or just “toilet paper”.
Google said it has found no evidence that its search algorithms are showing the Pakistani flag when people searched for the “best toilet paper in the world”, the “best China-made toilet paper” or just “toilet paper”.
The spokesperson of Google while speaking to IANS said: “While we continue to investigate the matter, we have not found any evidence that Google Images was ranking the Pakistani flag in response to this particular search.”
The Google spokesperson further added that “Many news outlets wrote about an old screenshot from a meme website that is inconsistent with our UI (user interface) and dates back to 2017, and we have not seen any independent verification that these results ever appeared as depicted.”
“Since these news stories (have been) published, images from those articles are now ranking for this query, as the pages contain words relevant to the search,” the spokesperson added.
The glitch on Google Search results was noticed a couple of days after the February 14 terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pulwama district that left 49 Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) personnel dead.
Screenshots of the search results have gone viral as memes, posts and status updates on several social media platforms, including Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.
Google algorithms have often displayed inappropriate search results on a certain keyword search. Earlier, searching words like “Feku”, “Pappu” and “Idiot” led users to images of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Congress President Rahul Gandhi and US President Donald Trump, respectively.