The image of Vietnamese national flag on the roof of a hall on Truong Sa Lon Island, part of Vietnam’s Truong Sa (Spratly) archipelago in the East Vietnam Sea, is no longer visible on two apps owned by Google, prompting local netizens to suspect the tech multinational of having deleted it.  

The incident was first discovered by some Vietnamese netizens on Monday when they used Google Maps and Google Earth, with what they saw being a white rectangular instead of a large Vietnamese flag made of ceramics on the island.

Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper reporters found the same censored area when searching for 'Truong Sa Lon' in satellite image mode on the two apps on smartphones and also on websites on Tuesday morning.

The incident has caused outrage among netizens who suspect that Google has erased the image of the national flag of Vietnam, which was placed 11 years ago.

Many people who accessed the Google Maps page left their comments requesting Google to respect Vietnam’s sovereignty over Truong Sa Lon Island in particular and the Truong Sa archipelago in general.

Some visitors also called on others to give '1 star' to the app in response to the suspected eradication of the Vietnamese flag.

A few people attached a picture displayed by Google itself in 2020 showing the Vietnamese flag at the same location, and demanded the company respect the truth.

The large national flag on the top of the hall came into being from the idea of painter Nguyen Thu Thuy, who wished that such a flag, which has a yellow star in the middle of a red background, could be seen from above by people on a plane or through satellites.

After many months of preparation, the national flag with a size of 12.4m x 25m, or 310 square meters, and made up of 310,000 ceramic mosaic tiles of 3cm x 3cm, was completed in 2012. 

The Vietnamese Ministry of Foreign Affairs has repeatedly affirmed that Vietnam has sufficient historical evidence and legal basis to affirm its sovereignty over the Truong Sa and Hoang Sa (Paracel) archipelagos in the East Vietnam Sea.​

Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam!