Winston Churchill’s picture disappears from Google’s Knowledge Panels

Yesterday users started to notice the image of Winston Churchill was not showing up in Google’s knowledge graph. The knowledge graph appear when users search for British prime ministers.

This week, on Tuesday night, a statue of Winston Churchill was vandalised in Parliament Square, London.  News outlets reported that protesters sprayed the statue with graffiti during a Black Lives Matter protest. Now Churchill’s statue is covered up with a box.

Google says that is exploring what caused the image to disappear & see if there are any improvements in those systems to address.

According to Google, Knowledge Graph information is retrieved in an automated way, mainly from Wikipedia. This information is then used by Google to create Knowledge Panels, that appear along with search results. Knowledge Panels include a title and short summary of the topic, a description, picures, key facts, and links o social or official websites.