The pressure to censor content often comes from advertisers. A lot of advertisers don't want their ads showing up next to photos with even minimally offensive content.
(This doesn't explain everything for Google, but I'm sure it was a factor.)
(This doesn't explain everything for Google, but I'm sure it was a factor.)
In other words, you're half-right. Don't blame Google. But probably don't blame advertisers either. Blame some overly sensitive consumer group or advocacy group for having no sense of humor and throwing their weight around because they have nothing better to do.
This is not to the detriment of your personal comfort or welfare. Please stop hamming this up beyond the reality of the situation. Google run a private service and while they should not censor political speech or genuine opinion, they certainly have the right to determine what they consider offensive.
It's not okay for Google to delete the image, without warning or notification to the user. They could have easily reset his profile pic to null and sent him a note.