Social media users have been left shocked and angry over Google’s recent decision to remove key holidays and social events like Black History Month, Holocaust Memorial Day and Pride Month from its calendar. On February 10th, the multi-trillion-dollar tech giant removed all non-official holidays from its calendar platform, making it so that its more than 500 million users now have to manually add in special days if they want to see them appear on the interface.
Other holidays removed include Jewish Heritage Month, Hispanic History Month and Indigenous People Month. Under a PopBase tweet announcing Google’s decision, commenters expressed their disgust. “This feels REALLY gross…” one user wrote. The fact that holidays such as Columbus Day and Veteran's Day are also still on the calendar for US users sparked accusations that the company had removed holidays according to their own preferences. An account commented: “Google picking and choosing what matters now? This is a bad look.”.
Another replied: “it’s crazy that these “days” are literally just reminders of the atrocities that this historically oppressed groups have overcome in order to coexist within society… it takes nothing away from everyone to keep these little reminders on a calendar. this is all meant to divide.”. Others questioned why important historical events were being treated like optional holidays despite their cultural impact. “Google Calendar out here acting like history is optional. What’s next, removing New Year’s because “time is a social construct”?” one wrote.
Non-US commenters also expressed their frustration. One account posted: “hey so why do we non-americans have to deal with this bullshit just cuz ur president is a nazi” which has since received over 346K likes. “Google really out here speedrunning how to lose public trust,” one user replied. Giving a reason as to why they removed the dates, a Google spokesperson told The Associated Press: “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.”.
However, many X users were sceptical and instead viewed the move as part of an overt alignment with right-wing ideology, notably Trump’s ongoing crusade against DEI policies. According to TechTarget, Google has also become one of the most recent businesses to rollback on DEI measures, with its parent company Alphabet removing mentions of inclusion programs from its annual reports. One account pointed out: “This is the first time I can remember where we as a society have taken large steps backwards in such a short amount of time. This, the removal of mentioning achievements from minorities on NASA websites, NFL removing “End Racism” on the field. Hate is winning. Fast.”.
