- Google’s changes to its Calendar to remove the beginning of Pride and Black History Month sparked debate online.
- Google said “maintaining hundreds of moments” became unsustainable, and changes began in mid-2024.
- Since Trump’s victory, Google has updated Google Maps in the US to say “Gulf of America” and ended diversity hiring targets.
Some quiet changes to Google Calendar have elicited a loud response as the culture wars play out in real time online.
Google has removed cultural observances including Pride Day, Women’s History Month, Black History Month, Holocaust Remembrance Day, Jewish Heritage Month, and Indigenous People Month, among other celebratory events, from Google Calendar.
As people heard about the change, which Google says began in mid-2024, some took to social media and internet forums to weigh in, with some criticizing and others praising the move.
Some users on X referred to the change as “anti-DEI.” Another said that Pride and Black History Month would continue to be celebrated regardless of any product changes.
“Just because the calendars are being changed doesn’t mean we have to,” the X user wrote.
Others applauded Google’s move. Conservative activist Robby Starbuck, who led campaigns against what he described as “woke policies” at companies like Walmart, reacted to the change with a fire emoji. Others took the moment to thank Google.
The removals from Google Calendar was first reported by The Verge on Friday after users online started highlighting the change.
A Google spokesperson told Business Insider that “some years ago,” its Calendar team began manually adding “a broader set of cultural moments in a wide number of countries around the world.”
“We got feedback that some other events and countries were missing — and maintaining hundreds of moments manually and consistently globally wasn’t scalable or sustainable,” the Google spokesperson said.
The spokesperson said that sometime in mid-2024, Google Calendar began showing only public holidays and national observances from outside company timeanddate.com. Google said that users can still manually add “important moments” to their personal calendars by customizing which holidays they show or subscribe to.
Timeanddate.com did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.
While the removal of Pride and Black History Month by default on Google Calendar appeared to generate some of the strongest reactions from users across the political spectrum, Google also removed other celebratory events, including Teacher’s Day.
The online discourse over Google Calendar follows some other changes Google has made more recently since Trump’s inauguration. Google Maps renamed the Gulf of Mexico to The Gulf of America for US users on Monday, following an executive order Trump issued in January.
The company also recently ended diversity-related hiring goals. In a memo sent last week, Google said it would no longer pursue hiring targets tied to representation. The company also said it would review its DEI programs and initiatives.
“As a federal contractor, our teams are also evaluating changes required following recent court decisions and executive orders on this topic,” a Google spokesperson previously said in a statement to BI about the search giant’s DEI policies.
Other companies, like Meta, have made similar policy changes since Trump’s reelection. In January, Meta announced it would roll back its diversity programs and no longer have a team focused on DEI. The social media company also changed its content moderation guidelines and replaced fact-checkers with community notes.
