The Tiananmen Square massacre was an important event in the history of freedom, except at Microsoft. Bing, the global search engine owned by Microsoft, is not displaying search results for the famous “tank man” who challenged Chinese power.
Friday is the anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, where thousands of people were killed or wounded protesting China’s communist regime. Yet, Microsoft censored the search result embarrassing to communist China.
The image, known worldwide as the “tank man” image, portrays a single protester standing in front of a government tank, stopping it and many more behind it.
“I know Microsoft censor[s] for the CCP in China, but this search is from the US,” Shane Huntley, a representative from Google’s Threat Analysis Group, tweeted along with a photo of missing image results.
“I would like to know why searching for ‘Tiananmen Square’ in [the] UK on Bing produces images all missing what happened - except the missing picture icons (camera cross) are actually the tanks and what happened. Basically, it's filtered outside China too,” security researcher Kevin Beaumont tweeted.
“Microsoft Bing is censoring search results here in the US for the Chinese government. Let that sink in for a moment. I just checked Bing and only saw tanks, checked Google and it shows the iconic images,” Ethan Bearman, an entertainment attorney, tweeted.
Meanwhile, Microsoft was attributing the missing search results to “human error.” Microsoft told Motherboard that the removal was “due to an accidental human error and we are actively working to resolve this."
“Microsoft now claims a human error led to the censoring of an iconic image right around the anniversary of the massacre by the Chinese government. Coincidence?” Bearman tweeted.
Conservatives are under attack. Contact Microsoft at 1-800-642-7676 and demand equal footing for conservatives. If you have been censored, contact us at the Media Research Center contact form and help us hold Big Tech accountable.
