Google's Calendar Changes: A Shift in Focus and a Look Ahead
Google removes cultural events from its calendar, raising questions about diversity and inclusion in tech.
Matilda
Google's Calendar Changes: A Shift in Focus and a Look Ahead
Google recently removed cultural events such as Black History Month and Pride Month from its calendar by default. Other events that were removed from the default calendar include Jewish Heritage, Indigenous People Month, Holocaust Remembrance Day, and Hispanic Heritage Month. This move has been met with mixed reactions, with some users praising Google for its decision and others criticizing the company for its lack of inclusivity. Google's spokesperson, Madison Cushman Veld, confirmed the changes to TechCrunch, saying that in mid-2024, the app reverted to show only what timeanddate.com shows as a public holiday or national observance. "Some years ago, the Calendar team started manually adding a broader set of cultural moments in a wide number of countries around the world. 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," the spokesperson said, adding…
