Google UK honors Japanese board game player instead of D-Day

Screenshot

Google UK honors Japanese board game player instead of D-Day
(Image credit: Screenshot)

A Google Doodle on the UK version of the search site, celebrating what would have been the 185th birthday of a Japanese board game player instead of the 70th anniversary of D-Day, has been yanked. The search giant had initially puzzled users today with its illustration honoring Go player Honinbo Shusaku instead of commemorating one of the most monumental days of the 20th century.

The image has been taken down and replaced with Google's normal logo. For its part, the company has long maintained that it tends to recognize light-hearted events on its homepage. "We try to be sensitive that a doodle is sometimes not the most appropriate way to [recognize] certain events, especially those that are more somber in nature," Google has said.

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Jordan Valinsky is the lead writer for Speed Reads. Before joining The Week, he wrote for New York Observer's tech blog, Betabeat, and tracked the intersection between popular culture and the internet for The Daily Dot. He graduated with a degree in online journalism from Ohio University.