Inauthentic images falsely claim Google creates Doodles for all religious holidays but Easter

By: Ishita Goel
April 25 2023

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Context

A viral Facebook post with screenshots of purported Google Doodles from several religious holidays is circulating on social media with the claim that Google is religiously biased. Google Doodles are altered versions of the Google logo shown on the browser on specific occasions. Social media users shared these photos, which included an image showing the usual logo on Easter, to claim that Google Doodles were created for Hanukkah, Ramadan, and Transgender Day of Visibility, but not Easter. They claimed that Google is anti-Christianity and hates Christians, claims that were also viral on Twitter.

This claim has circulated for years and resurfaces regularly on Ramadan and Easter. However, it is missing context.

In Fact

Google creates Doodles for some historically important birthdays, anniversaries, election days, several independence days, world celebratory days, sports events, and days marking inventions. 

We checked the archive section of the Google Doodle website and found no Doodle for Hanukkah, Ramadan, or Transgender Day of Visibility, as pictured in the posts. While Google does not traditionally make a Doodle for Easter, it did create one in 2000, with two Easter eggs instead of the two 'o' in Google.

Further, the Google Doodle Twitter account tweets about the day's Doodle, explaining the significance of the artwork. However, an advanced search on Twitter yielded no results for Hanukkah, Ramadan, or Transgender Day of Visibility. 

A Google spokesperson told Reuters that Doodles are not made for religious holidays according to current guidelines and added that the company sometimes creates "commemorative banners and interactive experiences for certain religious holidays," which are not the same as Google Doodles. 

Back in 2018, Google also told Fox News that they do not create Doodles for religious holidays. "Doodles may appear for some non-religious celebrations that have grown out of religious holidays, such as Valentine’s Day, Holi’s Festival of Colors, Tu B’Av, and the December holiday period, but we don’t include religious imagery or symbolism as part of these," the team had told Fox News. 

The viral images being shared as Google Doodles are, therefore, not authentic. We located the Hanukkah image seen in the post in a November 2021 blog, where the writer mentioned it was Google's yearly Hanukkah decoration. Further, the purported Ramadan Google Doodle was not created by Google, but by a Facebook group as part of a social media campaign to convince Google to do the same. While the group's page is no longer available, the art can be seen in a blog post from June 2010.

The Verdict

Google does not traditionally create Doodles for overtly religious holidays. Rare Doodles added on such days are because they have become larger celebrations, and the art does not carry religious imagery or symbolism. Therefore we have marked the claim as misleading.