Summary
Google Maps has blocked reviews for the Gulf of Mexico after backlash over renaming it “Gulf of America” for U.S. users, following a Trump executive order.
Critics accused Google of censorship after it removed negative reviews. Google defended the move, citing policies against off-topic content.
Mexico’s President Sheinbaum opposed the change and may take legal action. Apple Maps also adopted the new name.
The controversy adds to concerns over tech companies aligning with Trump, following Meta’s rollback of fact-checking and diversity initiatives.
Just downloaded Organic Maps as a replacement. No ads/tracking plus it’s open source and uses OSM. Seems pretty cool so far.
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The solution, of course, is to become an OSM contributor.
I am in a more remote area. Coverage is good in towns but not on residential streets.
I use StreetComplete as I walk around new areas and try to fill things in. It gamifies it a little bit with “quests” but you can do your own thing.
Its great seeing the fast feedback loop into Organic Maps at the next update.
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The dataset (“what you have on it”) and the quality of navigation are two very different things. For the first you can help directly to address it, for example with the app StreetComplete.
Totally useless for me, unfortunately. I’m in a new town and a new country and the lack of information on it compared to either Google or Apple makes it something I have no reason to use.
I hope it gets better so I can switch. I really don’t have a choice right now if I want to get around and just do basic things like find out what shops are open.
Register an OSM account and be the change you want to see in your local map!
How can I be the change I want to see when I don’t have the information I need in the first place?
I don’t mean that you need to enter info there that you don’t have. But - you found a new shop? Cool. Enter it in OSM. Or checking it’s correctly in OSM. Or append their opening hours to the data set or…
For some easy edits, there’s e.g. the android(?) app StreetComplete which will show „quests“ on OSM in your area to complete datasets. Like „is this street lit?“ „what surface does this road have?“, „are there board walks?“, „what’s this house number here?“, „what’s name of this street?“ and so on.
You can do such things on an afternoon stroll in your area and it will help you learn your surroundings and discover things.
I’m in the us and it doesn’t even recognize street names on my city. Labeling buisnesses doesn’t matter.
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I am far to busy to take afternoon strolls.
Bro, you have 3600 posts and almost 30.000 comments in 1.5 years on this platform, I see you in almost any instance and in countless communities.
Please, take an afternoon stroll.
💀💀💀💀
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He’s also an active mod in a few
And it takes me seconds to make them in between searching for the jobs I’ve only been searching for in the last three weeks.
But sure, count the entire 1.5 years.
Amazing how people just assume because you can take 30 seconds of time every so often to look at Lemmy, you have all the time in the world. What the fuck else am I supposed to do when I’m taking breaks, stick my finger in my ass?
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I only fill things in for places I’ve been or am already familiar with.
You can also check websites for places. You can get the site from Google Maps, of a web search, and start to fill things in you see missing.
Yeah I tried to get past bad naming but it’s just very annoying to have all the places in your town named as if they are in the next town over the river in a different province !
Magic Earth is a great companion for turn-based driving GPS. I just need these apps business search and discovery to be better. For example, it’s really easy to find coffee shops and compare quickly using google maps and it’s basically impossible on open source methods. Wider adoption should help but it feels years away for normal people with short patience to try.
Yes, it’s excellent. OSM will very likely accept the new name as well over time.
OSM community may add a locale metadata for Gulf of America for en-US.
No. Don’t give up the fight this easily. Google will eventually allow reviews again once this whole thing calms down. And that’s when we strike again.
If you really want to stick it to Google, the best way to do so as an individual is by dropping their products. Better to support products/companies you can trust than to try to bully a soulless corporation into acting like it gives a shit again.
Guys this isn’t activism, this isn’t protest, this isn’t going to stop fascism. Go outside.
I can’t go outside. I’m surrounded by MAGA hats that want me dead.
If anybody actually read the text of the executive order, they would immediately see that, unlike Trump & co. claim, it actually does not rename the Gulf of Mexico:
rename as the ‘‘Gulf of America’’ the U.S. Continental Shelf area bounded on the northeast, north, and northwest by the States of Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida and extending to the seaward boundary with Mexico and Cuba in the area formerly named as the Gulf of Mexico
This “renames” as “Gulf of America” the part of Gulf of Mexico in US territorial waters. (Though how you can “rename” something which never had a specific name is unclear to me.) In other words, it is simply incorrect to label the entire gulf as Gulf of America even according to the text of the executive order. Instead, Gulf of America should be a sub-area in the northern part of the Gulf of Mexico.
But they know no one will read the fine print. They’ll get the news coverage they want out of it.
Google also blocks bad reviews about Tesla Gigafactory Berlin.
Anyone else remembering the good old “do no evil” times from Google, where it actually was and enrichment for humanity?
And here we are today.
Fuck large companies, open source software is the only way forward
Always has been.
Ah yes censoring your detractors, the go-to move of someone who is confident that they’re in the right
I guess it’s time to give Google campuses 1 Star reviews?
I gave it a 5 star rating and left this as my review.
“Regardless of what a Racist, Fascist, Fear-mongering, Election rigging POS would have you believe; it’s the Gulf of Mexico.”
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You can still post photos with comments, fyi
One could still report other stuff around it and mention the gulf…
I suggested changing the name of Mar a Lago to Turd-o-Lardo
Yes, I was thinking of reviewing cities all around the Gulf next to annoy them ;)
You could also do something meaningful with your time instead.
Can they make Google list Canada as a state along with Greenland, then we won’t have to invade???
Always remember: Fascism is a feature of capitalism. In desperate times capitalism pushes facism.
Also capitalists are always gone be happy to work with fascists, because it gives them more power and money.
Fascism is a feature of being human.
Self-described communists can also fall very easy into fascism; remember the Soviets were friendly with the Nazis while they both launched imperial expansionist campaigns across Eastern Europe and split Poland between each other. Hitler and Stalin found common ground in being “anti- Western capitalism”. Some historians call the USSR the “red fascists”.
I think real, global communism will be the solution to fascism. It will require the overthrow of all capitalist systems.
Oh I didn’t know Apple is also a fuckboi.
Surprisingly it didn’t make the news like when Google did it, how come? Especially with how big apple is in USA.
Google Maps is by far the most popular map app which is why it’s more newsworthy.
Apple updated it a few days after Google so there was more focus on Google. So far Apple allows you to report an issue which I suspect will be removed next week.
More evidence that Corporations are psychopaths in pathological pursuit of profit, just as Joel Bakan wrote.
Who?
I mean just watch that video of Eric Schmidt of Google that came out last year. It’s pretty shocking how bold they are in their willingness to break laws and social norms for money.
This is pretty much the best case scenario I was expecting. Glad I had a hand in pestering them.
