Why not. A human was asked to fulfill a request to block the "tank man" search in China and forgot to add the country restriction.
There is no way to know if it is true, but it is definitely possible. This is probably an interface that isn't used incredibly frequently and may not be as polished as one might hope.
We certainly know that explantation isn't true because they are continuing to censor the results after "fixing it". Searching "tank man" now gets you images of tanks and men and not the iconic image. We know they could get it right if they wanted to because the non-image search for the phrase works.
> A human was asked to fulfill a request to block the "tank man" search in China and forgot to add the country restriction.
But why would someone be asked to block it today - if it's to be blocked in China, wouldn't it be blocked all through out the year?
Why specifically would they ask it to be blocked just now and not years ago? I can't know for sure, but it just feels like a rogue employee deciding to block "tank man" globally on the anniversary ...
There is no way to know if it is true, but it is definitely possible. This is probably an interface that isn't used incredibly frequently and may not be as polished as one might hope.