Reminds me a lot of after 9/11 when they tried to change French Fries to Freedom fries. That stuck about as well as water on teflon.
Anytime I hear someone complain about cancel culture I bring up freedom fries.
I cannot believe they bent on this at all. This isn’t the will of the people or a problem we asked to solve it is the asinine rantings of a fucking baby. Why the fuck am I stuck in this timeline holy shit.
I’m trying to work out who this is for. Presumably his fan club will approve, but I don’t think it was something that even they were particularly asking for.
well google always displays the locally official names and borders. so just business as usual.
but why does the president of the usa get to decide what places are called? isn’t there a cartography department or something?
Yes. The United States Board on Geographic Names is the group within the Department of the Interior which handles these matters. They are a part of the executive branch. I suspect that you can follow a chain of delegated authorities through that board, up the civil service hierarchy, landing on the desk of the President.
This is an example of the system not accounting for, or being ambivalent about, the election of someone to that office with a fascist ideology.
fair enough. i guess the usa never did a great job ar limiting their presidents power. that way he can extend his reach way further down, than he should…
If all he with his remaining term is just randomly rename stuff, I think we will consider ourselves to have gotten off lightly.
Google; we’re still calling it Twitter you think we’re gonna start calling it Gulf of America just because a doofus says so?
why would that be Google’s concern
I’ll keep an eye out for a firefox plugin to change it back.
This idea originated as a Stephen Colbert joke in 2010. As always I’m sure some will call this some sort of self-aware troll by Trump, but what are the odds of that.
Given Colbert took the absurdity of conservatism in the US and cranked it up to 11… I’m not surprised it’s becoming reality now.
One of my favorite funfacts about the Colbert Report is that many conservatives couldn’t tell it was satire.
So much so that Colbert earlier on was regularly invited to things like White House Dinner with Bush and Conservative Conferences. Even when he ended the show he claimed he had a lot of fan mail from Republicans saying they’d miss “Having a sane voice of reason on an otherwise liberal media network.”
Some Conservative Subreddits even had to have guidelines explaining he was satire, some claiming he was a straight up “Left Wing Disinformation Agent!”
That’s incredible.
I was quite conservative back in 2006, having been raised that way and still years away from my “enlightenment,” but I knew Colbert was satire. I still thought he was hilarious. I’ve always thought it’s important to be able to laugh at yourself.
Bush clearly felt the same, he was laughing right along with the roast, and had just finished doing a bit with a Bush impersonator that also roasted him.
But Trump is incapable of humility, and cannot stand the traditional presidential roast at the Press Correspondents’ Dinner.
“The Trump administration has passed a resolution saying that Mexico will now be called ‘America South’ and Canada ‘America North’. Google said it will follow the government’s lead in changing the names on it’s maps app.”
Why would google, a company of such unfathomable power and reach, be fearful of Trump? They can say no and it won’t affect their bottomline much.
Google, or rather Alphabet, is an American company. Trump is the president of America, the most powerful country militarily and economically. Alphabet is also subject to American laws and is currently under an anti-trust lawsuit with America. What makes you think Google can stand up against the US?
They’re not required to change it. All the law does is officially change the name for official government purposes it doesn’t require everyone in the US to start calling it that.
I never said they were required to change it. I just wanted to put into perspective the power that Google has vs the power the US has. Also change the name of the Gulf of Mexico is not law. It did not go through Congress.
Fearful, or in agreement with?
The only thing they care about is money. If their bottomline doesn’t benefit, they don’t do.
Unless the CEOs are worried they’ll have a Trump supporter shoot them dead and then be immediately pardoned and released by Trump.
Keep reporting it as a bug.
There’s little point in doing so, other than the feel-good moment. Google, and all other mapping companies, ultimately take their data from official sources. This differs per country, so users of maps from outside of the US will continue to see Gulf of Mexico, but complaining that it is wrong will only be ignored because they’re following the data from the official US government source.
They never fix bugs in maps. Some places IRL even got renamed, because it was easier than fixing the name in google maps.
Do you have any examples? It’s impossible to find with a search with the recent news.
Sorry, unable to find it now either and my memory fails me. There’s a chronically mislabeled place near where I live, but I don’t want to doxx myself. So, please have this vaguely related fun story instead: https://www.thesun.ie/news/14465782/ghost-aldi-supermarket-tourists-lorry
Can’t imagine wanting to work for big tech these days lol. These companies had insane reputation in the 2010s. People thought working for Google was like working in willy wonka’s chocolate factory. They really squandered their brand.
“Don’t be evil”
What about we be evil anyway?
i think when they rebranded as alphabet, they repealed that corporate philosophy.
Turns out evil is profitable.
Sadly though this was never going to be avoided, sure they’re leaning hard into conservative cult nonsense, but they were still on a downword optics trajectory. Its impossible not to have this happen in capitalism, it will always be inevitable that enshitifcation happens to milk profit from anywhere it can, and that will always look bad.
Wildly, people still think that about working at Apple, for now. I do see that changing slowly too though.
Yeah, I’ve been meaning to switch to OpenStreetMaps for a while now and this was the impetus to drop what I was doing and download it immediately. Fuck Google. So sick of this mask off tech plutocracy bullshit.
Edit: I’ve tried it a few times yesterday and today, and I like it. Works with Android Auto in my car, guidance voice isn’t annoying, directions are accurate. Only complaint is I’m not sure how to search up a business and have the app map me to the nearest location. I need to dig deeper and figure out if I just haven’t found it yet.
I would 100% drop GMaps if I could hit the directions button on a Google search and have it bring up OSM instead. Google Maps has been bugged for me for years and the maps app never gets the address from a browser search. I have to search for the business or address in the maps app itself for it to work.
The gulf of mexico vs gulf of america thread on the Open Street Map forum is interesting and worth a read.
https://community.openstreetmap.org/t/gulf-of-america-gulf-of-mexico/124571
The discussion seems to be focused around possibly waiting for one or more governing bodies to rule on the name change, or just going along with it and adding an alternate text for people who would prefer the old one, which I think is way more democratic than anything Trump had in mind when signing this XO.
I certainly prefer this over the blind deference that Google seems to have for an executive order that is functionally just direction to the state department and not legally binding in any way whatsoever.
Well the openstreetmap community aren’t employed by a bunch of hacks perching on a tower of cardboard held together by a failing scheme of duck tape that nobody left after all the layoffs and enshittification knows how to repair, so that makes sense : )
This is super dumb.
How are these morons so offended about the name of a body of water?
Their fragile ego is so completely shattered because Mexico “has a Gulf” and they “don’t”? Little men with too much power.
California should just change Gulf of California to Gulf of Mexico
Funny, but very confusing for people out of the loop.
The loop is broken and spilling loop juice all over at this point
Ultimate pettiness, show of power, or misdirection from other, more concerning news.
Could be all at of those or something entirely different, but it sure is pathetic.It’s misdirection and makes any laws or regulations specifically mentioning the Gulf of Mexico no longer apply since “tHeRe iSnT a gULf oF mExIcO.”
For what it’s worth, this is how Google maps has always worked. Use Google maps in China and you’ll notice that borders are in different places, HK,
TibetBhutan, the whole China sea, those are within China’s borders. It’s the same with Russia, crimea is just part of Russia if you use Google maps in Russia. If your country recognizes different borders or different names for places, that’s what Google shows you in your country. It’s basically either that or they can’t operate in that country, so they don’t really have a choice if they want to exist in that region.HK and Tibet are part of China in all maps. Did you mean Taiwan?
Well yeah, as of 6 years ago, after China invaded with military force, HK has been recognized as part of China on all maps. But Google showed it as part of China even before then.
And then yeah, I just remembered the wrong name, it was the border of Tibet/Bhutan that are in dispute, so parts of Bhutan display as Chinese territory.
Thanks for catching that.
HK was handed back to PRC in 1997, there was a ceremony and everything. Just because it was stolen by the British for sometime doesn’t mean it isn’t Chinese. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handover_of_Hong_Kong
A border dispute between Bhutan and China isn’t something exceptional, Wikipedia has a list of border disputes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_territorial_disputes your country might have some of its own
I never said it was exceptional, quite the opposite, I’m saying many countries have border disputes.
Interesting that you don’t seem to care about my other examples, Gaza or Crimea. Got a soft spot for China?
What a weird response. I was addressing your comment. You didn’t mention Palestine -all of it is Palestine FYI, Israel is just another Crusader state- and Crimea should be returned to the Crimean Tatars, both Slavic peoples are invaders.
But no, you would rather play the Sinophobia and Yellow Perilism card and assume that I receive Xi bucks. What a day! I didn’t mention my own country’s border disputes with its neighbors either! Didn’t see it necessary to educate you on the matter.
What a weird response. I was addressing your comment. You didn’t mention Palestine.
Oh whoops, it must have been a different post in this thread that I mentioned Gaza.
you would rather play the Sinophobia and Yellow Perilism card and assume that I receive Xi bucks.
I’ve said nothing of the sort. That sounds like deflection.
It’s giving big “freedom fries” energy. Makes sense when you think about how much of a wet dream the post-9/11 circle jerk was (is) for conservatives. They’re trying to recreate the same 2002 Republican, plastic-patriot distraction machine again.
I don’t think it’s gonna work as well because people could afford to eat Big Macs everyday back then. No joke, the economic situation is so dire I’m saving up to treat myself and my boyfriend to a fancy dinner date…
The dinner is at fucking Waffle House
This is so pathetic by Google.
They all bend the knee. Just wait until the persecution of political opposition becomes a thing.
Has nothing to do with bending the knee. The executive order literally changed the official name of the Gulf in the U.S. This situation is ridiculous, but it is the new U.S. government that you need to complain about, not the people implementing or deferring to their decisions.
Do. Not. Comply.
Giving in is what gives them the power.
I absolutely will call out people who think it’s ok to just go along with the new fascist regime.
Not legal
Obama renamed Mt. McKinley to Denali by executive order. Trump is using executive order to rename it back.
Biden outlawed oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico. Trump used executive order to rename it so the Gulf of Mexico “doesn’t exist”. (EDIT: Actually the naming appears to be unrelated to this. The drilling ban was specifically reversed in a different executive order that reversed several Biden EOs)
It’s all questionable use of executive order. But which party is going to step up and say “the last guy did it, but our guy shouldn’t be able to ignore checks & balances anymore”?
The difference is that it’s intentional waters and the International Hydrographic Organization is in charge of standardizing the names.
The IHO proposes names which world nations may or may not use.
Such is the case with the “Southern Ocean” around Antarctica since the early 2000s, which is randomly recognized & not recognized by world nations.
It still requires Congress to pass legislation. I think they would have to leave the organization entirely or amend the resolution to join it and recognize it’s naming convention. The executive order is illegal.
Actually very little of the gilf falls into international waters
gilf
I’ve heard of MILFs… but i’ve only seen GILFs in Japan. That’s not the geography we’re discussing here.
A line joining Cape Catoche Light (21°37′N 87°04′W) with the Light on Cape San Antonio in Cuba, through this island to the meridian of 83°W and to the Northward along this meridian to the latitude of the South point of the Dry Tortugas (24°35’N), along this parallel Eastward to Rebecca Shoal (82°35’W) thence through the shoals and Florida Keys to the mainland at the eastern end of Florida Bay and all the narrow waters between the Dry Tortugas and the mainland being considered to be within the Gulf.
Biden outlawed oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico. Trump used executive order to rename it so the Gulf of Mexico “doesn’t exist”.
I’d be very surprised if all laws/treaties cease to exist if you just rename the “counterparty”/location. Declare Mexico to be named South Texas, and laws no longer apply there?
Probably true.
But until a court actually steps up to say it, it’s the Wild West out there. And as soon as this gets shot down, another executive order will get wedged back in there to keep the rigs drilling.
EDIT: Apparently the naming had nothing to do with drilling. The drilling ban was already specifically reversed in a different executive order that reversed several Biden EOs
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International bodies of water tend to be named by… International governing bodies.
That said, Google’s choices about which country to rely on has… Some real-world ramifications. Like the very… shall we say, “open to interpretation” border between India and Pakistan. Or, China and India’s border.
