Google Calendar has removed cultural events like Pride month, Black History Month, Indigenous People Month, Jewish Heritage, Holocaust Remembrance Day, and Hispanic Heritage from its default calendar, sparking outrage among users. The move has been met with criticism, with some accusing the company of "capitulating to fascism" and being "shameful."

The removal of these events was first noticed by users, who took to social media to express their disappointment and anger. A Google product expert confirmed that the events had been removed, citing a change in the company's approach to default calendar events.

According to Google spokesperson Madison Cushman Veld, the company had been working with timeanddate.com to show public holidays and national observances in Google Calendar for over a decade. However, the Calendar team had started manually adding a broader set of cultural moments in various countries around the world. This approach proved to be unsustainable, as maintaining hundreds of moments manually and consistently globally was not scalable.

As a result, Google returned to showing only public holidays and national observances from timeanddate.com globally in mid-2024, allowing users to manually add other important moments. This change has sparked debate, with some users feeling that the removal of these cultural events is a step backward.

The move has also raised questions about the role of technology companies in promoting diversity and inclusion. While Google's decision may have been driven by practical considerations, it has sparked a wider conversation about the importance of recognizing and celebrating cultural events.

It remains to be seen how Google will respond to user feedback and criticism, but the incident highlights the need for technology companies to be mindful of their impact on society and culture. As the tech industry continues to shape our daily lives, it is essential that companies prioritize diversity, equity, and inclusion in their products and services.

In the meantime, users can still manually add cultural events to their Google Calendar, but the removal of these events from the default calendar has sparked a necessary conversation about the role of technology in promoting diversity and inclusion.