Google is being criticized because it allows search results to show a Photoshoped image of Michelle Obama altered to make her look like a monkey. It’s a despicable photo. Many people argue that Google shouldn’t allow people to find it.

As much as I dislike that photo, Google can’t take this path. And why, I wonder, aren’t those same people up in arms about all the other stuff on the internet which can turn up in search results?

You can find white nationalist sites, anti-Semitic sites, information on making a bomb, unflattering caricatures of nearly any public figure, and pretty much anything having to do with sex. All things considered, this photo seems pretty trivial. If Google censors this one photo, it opens a huge, huge door. Imagine all the people who will come storming through the door next, pointing out how their pet cause was slighted and demanding that Google make it stop.

Google says, “We do not remove a page from our search results simply because its content is unpopular or because we receive complaints concerning it.”

Except in China. There, if the Chinese government says remove it, they remove it. But in America…let the photo remain. And let those people all in a huff about it go after some of the multitude of other junk on the web which is far, far more offensive. Or, go after whoever created the photo, and the people who post it.