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Google Maps Will Rename Gulf of Mexico as Gulf of America in US
- jedbrooke 2y agoI don’t see why people are so upset about this. Mexico is in the continent of North America. if they were trying to rename it to “Gulf of the United States” or something then that would be less reasonable.
- matthewdgreen 2y agoBecause it’s weird and stupid and random.
- bbzealot 2y agoJust because the new name may be geographically accurate doesn't mean it was a good idea to change it. The change was clearly for propaganda reasons, and that is what makes people upset
- yladiz 2y agoThat’s basically what they did. It’s obvious that “America” here means USA, not the continent.
- Filligree 2y agoI'm sure the United Statesians didn't mean that.
- happytoexplain 2y agoAmerica is an extremely common synonym for the USA, for better or worse. It's not convincing to imply that you believe a president of the USA, renowned for his nationalist rhetoric and pettiness, renamed a geographic feature bordering Mexico and the USA from "The X of Mexico" to "The X of America" not as a reference to the USA. Regardless, it's antagonistic to the namesake for no good reason, no matter what the new name is.
- drawkward 2y agoQuislings.
- taylodl 2y agoThanks! I learned a new word!
- explain 2y ago[flagged]
- drawkward 2y agoCorporations are not democracies; this has nothing to do with democracy.
- Fauntleroy 2y agoWas this on the ballot, or even a campaign promise?
- bbzealot 2y agoWorth noting that most of that user's history is right wing propaganda
- drawkward 2y agoIt was obvious by their comment that this would be the case.
- happytoexplain 2y agoAntagonizing Mexico, especially in a petty way, and renaming geographic features to include the word "America", seem very solidly on-brand. I assume the majority of Trump voters would support this. I.e. this specific thing is not a promise, but this genre of behavior is an implicit promise.
- osigurdson 2y agoI don't like the (global) trend of renaming things every time governments change. It is lazy tokenism in my opinion.
- draw_down 2y ago[dead]
- estebarb 2y agoSo, we will see "America Mexicana" in Google Maps?
- bpodgursky 2y agoThe Google policy of using official government policy for naming places is reasonable exactly so they don't have to fight an internal civil war over every (dumb) move like this.
- drawkward 2y ago"Don't Be Evil" was also once a Google policy.
- belval 2y agoThe name change is stupid, but not sure how it could qualify as evil.
- bpodgursky 2y agoIf Trump renamed it to like "The Gulf of Hitler Did Nothing Wrong" then sure, pick a fight. "Gulf of America" is a nothingburger.
- jasonlfunk 2y agoThis is exactly right. I'm not sure who should get to decide what the name of the gulf should be, but it shouldn't be Google.
- yladiz 2y agoWaiting for someone to pull an Astana[1] and a rename of Washington to Trump. 1: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astana#Names https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astana#Names
- baggy_trough 2y agoThis is pretty annoying - almost as bad as trying to rename Turkey to whatever non-ASCII atrocity they came up with.
- bbqfog 2y agoFreedom fries for maps. Very idiotic.
- RegnisGnaw 2y agoGoogle does this for a lot of places, for example Kashmir. In India the law mandates that any non-historical map must show all of Kashmir as part of India. Similar law for Pakistan. So Google Maps shows Kashmir as part of India if you are in India and Pakistan if you are in Pakistan.
- cxr 2y agoThis is a great example of how right people are to have a low opinion of news organizations over the rage- and clickbait that even ostensibly respectable ones are willing to traffic in for engagement. The entire basis for this article seems to be these four statements that Google posted on Twitter: > We’ve received a few questions about naming within Google Maps. We have a longstanding practice of applying name changes when they have been updated in official government sources. > For geographic features in the U.S., this is when Geographic Names Information System (GNIS) is updated. <https://www.usgs.gov/tools/geographic-names-information-system-gnis https://www.usgs.gov/tools/geographic-names-information-syst...> > When that happens, we will update Google Maps in the U.S. quickly to show Mount McKinley and Gulf of America. > Also longstanding practice: When official names vary between countries, Maps users see their official local name. Everyone in the rest of the world sees both names. That applies here too. <https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1884012692048166951.html https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1884012692048166951.html> (Side note: you know how I know this? Not because the esteemed folks behind this piece linked to their sources, as would be reasonable, given the affordances of the medium. I had to take the fragments mentioned in the article and track it down myself.) Please: 1. Flag this article 2. Stop rewarding the professional writers, editors, and news organizations and other shameless sacks of shit who turn out/receive outrage pieces like this and say, "Yeah, we're fine with this" 3. Stop submitting this kind of dogshit here
- polotics 2y agoEagerly awaiting the moment this gets renamed to "Gulf between promises on inflation and reality". Maybe plan it as an April's fools joke from the Gmaps' crew? ;-D
- crtasm 2y agoGoogle Maps in the US Will Change to Gulf of America and Mount McKinley (theverge.com) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42849935 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42849935 43 points | 7 hours ago | 64 comments
- ChrisArchitect 2y ago[dupe] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42847758 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42847758
- kjsingh 2y agoWho is the designated naming authority