Microsoft’s Bing search engine has become the centre of attention for all the wrong reasons today and it’s all because of a single image.
Every single day Bing’s homepage shows a beautiful photograph. Today’s was of an absolutely breathtaking beach in Croatia. Here it is:
Now at first glance you might be thinking there’s absolutely nothing wrong with this picture. It is as you would expect, beautiful, idyllic and a perfect way to start your day.
You would of course be extremely wrong. Eagle-eyed developer and now internet hero Andrew Lyle saw what no-one else wanted to see.
See it yet?
That’s right, hidden amongst the utopian shades of of blue and gold someone has drawn what is quite clearly a penis into the sand of what has to be one of the most beautiful beaches in the world.
In defence of the the algorithm/moderator that chose the image for Bing’s homepage it is extremely hard to see at first glance. This is however the internet we’re talking about and so it was only ever going to be a matter of time.
It’s important to treasure these moments, these rare flashes of human error that remind us no matter how good technology is, sometimes a penis drawn in the sand will just slip through the net.
Microsoft has quite understandably not only photoshopped the image so it removes the offending artistic creation but has always now changed the image to a completely new one.
And so life carries on.