Last night, as soon as Google posted their Olympic Charter logo to make a statement about the anti-gay laws in Russia, I wrote a story on the new logo.
When I woke up this morning, there were over a hundred comments, mostly hateful, angry, hurtful, and completely inappropriate. Truth is, there are these comments on dozens, if not, hundreds of other sites.
The Google search forums had dozens of threads with users who are upset about the logo. They were mostly consolidated in this one Google Web Search Help thread. Some of the comments are praising Google for standing up for gay rights but most are either hateful.
This is the one that lead it off and it is actually okay in tone but suggestive:
Hi, I am a long time Google user. I simply want to use Google search to look things up, not to have a political or ideological agenda put in my face. My request is simple, please stop using the Google Doodles for political/ideological purposes. Thank you.
But the comments get much much worse.
Of course, these are your options, since you really do not have to use Google and Google is not a public company and they don't have to listen to you or me:
If you're offended by the current doodle, here are some alternatives:- http://www.google.com/firefox
- http://www.bing.com
- http://www.duckduckgo.com
- Avoid google.com for 24 hours.Shut down your computer, go old school with the Dewey Decimal system and read a good book from your local library.
I am not surprised by this, normally Google's logos get controversial and of course on this topic, it will cause a lot of tension. But especially when Google pushed the message on the home page with a few lines of text, which they never do:
"The practice of sport is a human right. Every individual must have the possibility of practicing sport, without discrimination of any kind and in the Olympic spirit, which requires mutual understanding with a spirit of friendship, solidarity and fair play." –Olympic Charter
But if you check out Google+, dominated by Googlers, the comments on the Google logo are awesome.
In any event, I suspect by tonight, the logo will talk about something else.
Forum discussion at Google Web Search Help.
