Google has run into a pickle with Indian audiences for quite some time. Remember when searching for ‘Anti-national’ on Google Maps led you to JNU?
And now Google found itself in another tough spot recently when an image search for “Top ten criminals” resulted in Prime Minister Narendra Modi being shown.
Following this, a court in India has issued notices to Google, its CEO, and India head for defaming the name of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Advocate Sushil Kumar Mishra was the one who had filed the complaint, and he mentioned he was also considering filing criminal cases against top officials of Google.
Gupta said he had written a letter to Google and also approached the police, but got no responses.
This was first noticed in 2015 and in Google’s defence, they did feature a disclaimer above the search results saying that they do not endorse the list and that their search algorithms pick up results from information on the web. Despite this, the next court hearing is scheduled on the 31st of August.
Further information is now awaited.
News source: The Times of India
Cover image sources: 1 & 2