Google say no evidence its images showed Pak flag for 'toilet paper'

Google on Tuesday said that it has found no evidence that its Search algorithms were showing the Pakistani flag when looked for the "best toilet paper in the world", the "best China-made toilet paper" or just "toilet paper".

"While we continue to investigate the matter, we have not found any evidence that Google Images was ranking the Pakistani flag in response to this particular search," a company spokesperson said.

"Many news outlets wrote about an old screenshot from a meme website that is inconsistent with our UI (user interface) and dates back to 2017, and we have not seen any independent verification that these results ever appeared as depicted," the spokesperson added.

Earlier, media reports said a glitch on Google Search results was noticed after the February 14 Pulwama terror attack that left 40 Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) troopers dead.

Screenshots of the search results went viral as memes, posts and status updates on several social media platforms, including Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

"Since these news stories published, images from those articles are now ranking for this query, as the pages contain words relevant to the search," said the Google spokesperson.

Google algorithms have displayed inappropriate search results on certain topics in the past.

Earlier, searching words like "Feku", "Pappu" and "Idiot" led users to the images of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Congress President Rahul Gandhi and US President Donald Trump, respectively.