Pro-democracy protest graffiti aimed at Chinese President Xi Jinping has been ‘blurred out’ on Google’s updated version of Street View Map, according to Hong Kong media.
Screenshots show one of the slogans, which read ‘Xi Jinping must die for the sake of the world’, spray-painted on a main road before being blurred on the search engine’s website.
A spokesperson for Google said that the blurred-out graffiti was caused by ‘an algorithm error’, according to Hong Kong Free Press.
Google updated its Street View Map to include images of the city’s streets taken last October when Hong Kong was gripped by months of anti-government demonstrations.
The movement carried on as a sweeping national security law imposed by Beijing to gain full control of the city spurred new waves of protests.
A picture released by Hong Kong Free Press shows the graffiti aimed at President Xi spray-painted on a line of plant pots separating traffic lanes on Nathan Road, where major rallies erupted during the demonstrations last year.
It said: ‘Anti-communist. Xi Jinping must die for the sake of the world.’ But the slogan was blurred out in another screenshot of the updated Google Street View.
The graffiti is revealed only when it is viewed from a distance further down the Kowloon thoroughfare, the report said.
Another slogan saying ‘liberate Hong Kong; the revolution of our times’ painted on the same road was also covered by blur.
A representative for the search engine giant claimed that the incident was caused by technical difficulties.
In a response to the Hong Kong news outlet, they said: ‘Our automatic blurring technology aims to blur faces and license plates so they can’t be identified, but it looks like we didn’t get it right in this instance.’
MailOnline has contacted Google for further comments.
The news comes as anti-government protests have flared up on the streets of Hong Kong again over the weekend after weeks of relative calm since the enactment of a national security law.
In a video widely shared online, a 12-year-old was violently pushed to the ground and pinned down by riot police in Hong Kong on Sunday as protests returned to the city.
The child was seen in the video circulated online trying to run away from a group of officers who then tackled the young girl to the ground while onlookers shouted in anger.
The girl was out buying art supplies before she was tackled down by the police, her mother told reporters.
This article has been adapted from its original source.
