On the 32nd anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre, Microsoft Bing BLOCKS image search results for "tank man" and "tiananmen square 1989"

Vulkan HeStan · June 4, 2021

On the 32nd anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre, Bing has censored image results for "tank man" and "tiananmen square 1989".

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Bing, the search engine owned by Microsoft, is not displaying image results for a search for "Tank man," even when searching from the United States. The apparent censorship comes on the anniversary of China's violent crackdown on protests in Tiananmen Square in 1989.

The first person to notice this is none other than a Google employee.

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Shane Huntley from Google's Threat Analysis Group first tweeted a screenshot of the Bing search result.

Image search results for "tank man" are returned blank, even when searching with SafeSearch off (and from a UK IP address too).

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Bing displays ordinary, non-image search results for tank man when searching from a U.S. IP address; the issue only impacts the images and videos tabs.

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Multiple Twitter users also sent Motherboard images of the lack of image results on Bing while connecting from France, Switzerland, and other countries.

Interestingly, both Yahoo and DuckDuckGo are having the same "issue".

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Motherboard verified that the issue also impacts image searches on Yahoo and DuckDuckGo, which both use Bing. Neither company immediately responded to a request for comment.

Apparently the issue is due to "human error", but I'm highly sceptical and believe there are other forces at play.

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A Microsoft spokesperson told Motherboard in an email that "This is due to an accidental human error and we are actively working to resolve this."

My thoughts

It's often discussed that "Big Tech" have too much power over the media and censorship (i.e. a former US president being suspended from social media), but the idea that foreign countries can encroach on these companies and theoretically censor huge parts of history, including the massacre of protesters, is incredibly unnerving. Many of us are incredibly lucky to have the right to a free vote, the freedom of speech and assembly, but we mustn't take these for granted, and that starts with censorship of history.