Tiananmen 'tank man' images vanish on Bing search engine, Microsoft blames 'human error'

Users said their search results for the iconic tank man image on Bing returned the message: "There are no results for tank man".

A Chinese man stands alone to block a line of tanks heading east on Beijing's Changan Boulevard in Tiananmen Square on 5 June 1989. Source: AAP/Jeff Widener

Microsoft Corp has blamed "accidental human error" for its Bing search engine not showing results for the query "tank man" in the United States and elsewhere after users raised concerns about possible censorship around the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown.

Users, including in Germany and Singapore, reported on Friday that when they performed the search Bing returned the message: "There are no results for tank man".

Hours after Microsoft acknowledged the issue, the same search returned only pictures of tanks elsewhere in the world.

"Tank man" is often used to describe an unidentified person famously pictured standing before tanks in China's Tiananmen Square during pro-democracy demonstrations in June 1989.

Microsoft said the issue was "due to an accidental human error and we are actively working to resolve this".

Chinese troops and tanks gather in Beijing on 5 June 1989, one day after the military crackdown that ended a seven week pro-democracy demonstration. Source: AAP

Smaller search engines such as DuckDuckGo that license results from Microsoft faced similar issues around "tank man" searches and said they expected a fix soon.

Rival Google showed many results for the famous image when the "tank man" search was performed on Friday.

A significant percentage of the Microsoft employees who work on Bing are based in China, including some who work on image-recognition software, according to a former employee.

China is known to require search engines operating in its jurisdiction to censor results, but those restrictions are rarely applied elsewhere.