Google to 'explore' why Churchill photo missing from search list.

Google said Sunday it would explore why the picture of Britain's World War II leader Winston Churchill disappeared from a top search results list of former UK prime ministers, during controversy over his record on racism. The search giant said the photo's removal from its horizontal list atop search results for former British premiers was due to an automatic update and 'not purposeful', but apologised 'for any concern'.

It noted that the issue only applied to its so-called 'knowledge graph' listing and that many images of Churchill were still easily found on its search engine. 'We're aware an image for Sir Winston Churchill is missing from his knowledge graph entry on Google,' the firm's search liaison arm said on Twitter.

'We apologise for any concern. This was not purposeful and will be resolved. Images in such panels are automatically created and updated. During an update, they can briefly disappear.'

The statement added his photo would be restored to the list as rapidly as possible.

'We'll want to explore exactly why an automatic update caused it to disappear and see if there are any improvements in those systems to address.'

However, the change provoked a swift backlash on social media.

'Mind blowing if this is deliberate policy, @Google,' said Conservative lawmaker Simon Clarke.

'Western Europe would almost certainly be...