Google got into hot water recently by showing a picture of Michelle Obama modified to make her look like a chimpanzee in the Image Search returns.

From the Huffington Post:

Google has purchased online ads in an effort to explain to users why an offensive image of Michelle Obama is appearing, and is ranked so highly, in its Google Image search results.

They also have a disclaimer which reads:

Sometimes Google search results from the Internet can include disturbing content, even from innocuous queries. We assure you that the views expressed by such sites are not in any way endorsed by Google. Search engines are a reflection of the content and information that is available on the Internet. A site’s ranking in Google’s search results relies heavily on computer algorithms using thousands of factors to calculate a page’s relevance to a given query. The beliefs and preferences of those who work at Google, as well as the opinions of the general public, do not determine or impact our search results.

All well and good – remember the George W Bush “miserable failure” Google Bomb?

What’s weird, though, is the results that pop up when we choose between Safe Search: Off, Safe Search: Moderate, and Safe Search: strict. Take a look below:

Safe Search Off

Safe Search Moderate

Safe Search Strict

Google says this about the SafeSearch filter:

Use Google’s SafeSearch filter if you don’t want to see sites that contain pornography, explicit sexual content, profanity, and other types of hate content in your Google search results. While no filter is 100 percent accurate, SafeSearch checks a website’s keywords and phrases, URLs, and Open Directory categories to determine and filter out inappropriate sites.

Now, we take that to mean that if we have Moderate or Strict filtering, the chances of offending images appearing should be reduced. But look at the results for “moderate” or “strict” filtering… and then compare them with the results for “no” filtering (Safe Search Off), which in theory should put anything and everything up there, offensive or not.

That’s not even taking into account Google’s suggestion of “related” searches “michelle obama monkey”. Of course, we are sure that this is just because it is a popular search term… which should tell you a lot about people on the internets.