Did Apple and Google Erase International Women’s Day from Their Calendar Apps? X Users Raise Concerns:

Google and Apple have self-censored International Women's Day considering it is today, March 8, 2023. There are already ample comments on X (previously Twitter) criticizing the two tech companies for them scrubbing the day off their digital calendars. For verification, we looked at both Google and Apple calendars and, yes, International Women's Day is absent.

Apart from this, many users on X are claiming that Apple has also vanished Women's History Month from her Calendar app in the U.S. and many other parts of the world. It has been reported that Google has done this as well. This has caused outrage with speculations about Apple following the U.S government’s increased efforts to terminate laissez faire policies on staffing diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) in large scale technology companies. This is not surprising considering Google’s previous decision of getting rid of Black History Month and Pride Month from their calendars, making this decision unfortunate but not shocking.

In this case we consider Grace Petrie’s express tweet of 18 April 2023 sharing her frustration with Apple’s calendars on X. Post reads “It’s bad enough that Apple has removed International Women’s Day, Pride Month, and other minority community dates from their calendar. But it’s especially rich considering they never once let me forget to observe the Battle of the Boyne. ”

On the post Moody remarked sharing a sense of shrugged disbelief, saying “Yep. They did. Apple and Google is purging International Women’s Day from their calendars, as seems to be the case. Guess we’re not a big deal at all.”

As it stands now, there has been no comment whatsoever from the two firms about the criticism or attempt to justify the move.

This is not Googles first offense. In the past they've faced numerous backlash over skipping over Pride month and Black History Month on their calendar app due to the reason being that they had coded in a manual for certain capture events such as cultural ceremonies and teachers days and other global events. After receiving complaints based around missing events and countries Google claimed it is no longer realistic to add hundreds of calendar days for everybody. Now they solely incorporate public holidays and national celebrations from timeanddate.com and no longer bother with the rest.

Google’s internal policies have transformed along with other businesses. Previously, the company’s head of HR, Fiona Cicconi, shared that due to the firm’s status as a federal contractor and recent US court rulings and executive orders, the company would no longer set specific DEI hiring goals.

Trump’s dissolution of DEI policies

After winning the presidency, Trump announced that his administration would strictly oppose DEI policies. “We have moved to get rid of every discriminatory diversity, equity, and inclusion bullshit – and that's what these policies were – in the United States government and any private companies that work with us,” Trump stated during the World Economic Forum.