Google causes outrage by removing cultural events from Calendar
Google has removed several cultural observances from Google Calendar, including Pride Day, Women’s History Month, Black History Month, Holocaust Remembrance Day, Jewish Heritage Month and Indigenous People Month. The change, made in mid-2024, has prompted a variety of reactions online.
Some users on platforms such as X voiced criticism, labeling the move as “anti-DEI” (policies against diversity, equality and inclusion) and claiming that the celebrations would continue regardless of the product changes. Others, however, applauded the decision. Conservative activist Robby Starbuck, known for his campaigns against what he calls “woke policies,” responded approvingly.
Maintaining such a system proved untenable. As of mid-2024, Google Calendar now shows mostly holidays and national celebrations sourced from timeanddate.com. Users retain the ability to personalize their calendar by adding specific events or subscribing to relevant feeds.
“Some years ago, the Calendar team started 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,” a Google spokesperson told The Guardian.
This development follows other recent changes at Google, including renaming The Gulf of Mexico to The Gulf of America for US users on Google Maps and ending diversity-related recruitment targets.
Similar policy changes have taken place at other companies such as Meta, which has scaled back diversity programs and replaced fact-checkers with community notes.
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