And why not? Their CEO's are foldable as well.
"Don't be Evil"
Folded.
So here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. Here’s to you.
Folded
Should a rendering of the land bordering the Southwest corner of the Black Sea show the city of Istanbul? Or must it remain depicted as Constantinople? Or perhaps even Byzantium?
Regardless of which side of the line you land on, this is a fundamental truth. "They're just using its legal name" is a dishonest use of the word "just".
Is it legally one lake with two names, or two lakes with one name?
What should customers in neither country see displayed? What if the federal government renames New Mexico to New America, but the state government refuses?
The English channel / the sleeve (france)
The Baltic sea / East Sea (Germany) / west sea (estonia)
Rivers, mountain ranges, etc.
So for these companies to label a lake different things in different countries is trivial and business as usual.
Likewise geopolitical tensions, renaming, borders moving, etc all have precedent.
So while the actual renaming of this lake is novel from a geopolitical standpoint (Canada and US relations) it isn't novel for Google or Apple to make a change like this.
I think there's some question as to whether the President can just rename things with an EO - what's the legal name of that lake right now from a US standpoint - there isn't a 100% answer for that.
Which honestly wouldn't be that hard.
This should be handled exactly the same way it would be if the countries involved were China and India. Which is probably, people in China see the Chinese view, people in India see the Indian view, and everyone sees it as contested.
Having worked in the mapping sector for a bit, it makes sense.
Google/Apple are not deciding what the lake is called. They are pulling data from the GNIS.
This way people in a region will see what their government decides is the correct version for their people.
Let's take this out of the heated debate.
In the most of the world and Iran (strangely we agree on this), we recognize a body of water known as the Persian Gulf. For the Arab League states, they call this the Arabian Gulf.
Is that Google being evil? Should Google decide what this is called? Or just leave it to the region to decide themselves.
What about the border of Kashmir? How should they handle that?
Why? It's an emotional subject. We can debate it heatedly without becoming irrational.
>In the most of the world and Iran (strangely we agree on this), we recognize a body of water known as the Persian Gulf. For the Arab League states, they call this the Arabian Gulf. Is that Google being evil?
I have no idea. I don't have enough cultural context to make an informed decision.
On the matter of Trump's renamings, Google does have that context.
We do not need to pretend that everything is decidable by simple one-line equations. We are all humans.
In the context of what is "acceptable" for human opinions: It is OK for Google to decide to concede to the president's renamings based on their existing umbrella policy. It is also OK for people to consider Google immoral for doing so.
Both things are within that range. We need to stop pretending otherwise with these weak "technically..." arguments and over-reliance on analogies that we tend toward as engineers.
Also, I was curious, so I looked it up: Congress passed a law (Public Law 80-242) in 1947 that allowed the executive branch to establish a single set of geographic names.
Conservatives famously protested when the Obama administration renamed Mt. McKinley to Denali. I have no doubt that when a Democratic administration returns to power, they will rename a bunch of stuff, now that the precedence is set.
My guess is we're going to go through a ping-pong of renames before the law gets changed to require some kind of independent group, or a super-majority of senators or something.
Unless you're saying that they should have declined the Denali change, but then does that mean they can never accept a change? Names are locked for eternity?
I think what you want is, "only accept a change when you agree with it." But that's picking.
Although I haven’t much thought through the details, I wonder if these disputed names could be subject to user preference. Basically, a pre-MAGA and MAGA setting.
At the end of the day a map provider has the responsibility to show the official names of places on a map. If it’s one name to the US and another name for the rest of the world, the pragmatic solution is to show the “right” name based on a user’s location.
This seems like a silly hill to die on, when whoever is in office next will likely revert the names of the lake and the Gulf of Mexico, unless they are deep in the Trump camp.
Messing with maps as a negotiation tactic seems rather boneheaded. It’s extremely disruptive, but blaming Google or Apple for any of this is a bad move, imo. There are much bigger fights to be had and they need to pick their battles. This isn’t it, and it will likely resolve itself in time, and should only impact those in the US, if done right.
Not really. They have the responsibility to show the useful names. They are also free to show whatever the local bully forces them to.
Neither of those is necessarily the official name.
They have the capacity to push back, instead of pre-emptively rolling over for an autocrat.
But now large tech companies in America can't even challenge the naming of a Lake and just folded, meekly.
So, companies can easily pay Trump for favors with out any consequences, but they just need to keep the money train going and kowtow to Trump's insane whims.
At first they were saying it's just Trump, they get it
As it has carried on and on conversations have veered into "the people of that country are not reliable and intelligent global partners or the American system truly is a dystopian mess"
Build and trade amongst yourselves instead of relying on this house of cards. Buy European. Buy Canadian.
Which is the point: once the first domino falls, the rest will naturally follow suit. The playbook has been tested on the USA, and any guards against it have been eliminated. They are slowly going to work their way across the global, running the same playbook. And where they don't run it, someone else will.
Granted, a weak USA means that they also have no protections should another country attempt to bring them to justice or "nationalize" their property. But I'm sure most of them have a contingency plan for that scenario.
That makes them only useful as windsocks, and there are other far better ways to see which way the wind is blowing.
Lets not cross the streams just because it would be convenient this time... next time it may well not be.
They could have done the same right? They probably even have a team specifically for evading the law
Just to get as close as money can buy.
I’m not sure what the problem is.
When it’s only one thing, you might say everyone just knows, but that doesn’t scale.
And like I mentioned, they need to pick their battles. I’d rather them save their politics and favors for things like encryption and privacy, not piss it away on map data, when they can show both names and this will likely be a small footnote in history. In 20 years I can imagine, “What was the name of Lake Ontario for a brief period in the mid 2020s?” Being a question asked at bar trivia.
A core principle of authoritarianism is to get people, corporations, and institutions to yield to the despot's — comply in advance, retell the despot's lies, applaud the despot's ridiculous new clothes.
Anything not doing that provides permission for others to also refuse.
The entire principle of authoritarianism is it is too costly for a small number of people to resist, so the activation energy never happens. That is why they swat down one "bee" so hard, because if a million "bees" get together, they are done.
Supporting any person or corporation who resists is legit, as is refusing to support those who comply.
And the idea that corporations are only responsible for "shareholder value" and have zero responsibility to the people or society which literally sustains them is BS; just a mantra to justify running corporations like sociopaths.
So please, spare me the idealistic pitch about the power of symbolism, your record of results is appalling and embarrassing. It's a tragic misreading of history based on cherrypicked events that leads people to engage with this kind of mindset in any serious way.
I am also not even close to claiming such disobedience is sufficient. It is not.
But it is a necessary first step. And failing to take that first step is a notable failure
The very first chapter title in On_Tyranny by historian of 20th-century Europe Timothy Snyder [0] are: "Do Not Comply In Advance"
The entire operation of authoritarianism is to force all the institutions of govt (executive, legislative, & Judicial), and of society (press, industry, academia, sport, religion, groups, etc.) to serve not the independent purposes they serve in a democratic society, but to serve the executive authoritarian.
Forced compliance is the first and most essential tool of authoritarians.
When major institutions or organizations comply, they make it harder for everyone else to not comply. Conversely, non-compliance sets the example for others to not comply. Every non-compliance makes it harder for the authoritarians to implement fascism.
On the other side, note how the current US regime is working so hard to erase actual history of slavery, racism, and atrocities against minorities. They are mere symbolic plaques describing massacres or other history at museums or historic sights — meaningless symbolism, right? NOPE, they are official statements giving permission to think in ways other than the despot wants you to think.
Similarly, had Google and Apple kept the actual historic name of Lake Ontario, which predated both the US and Canada's founding, it would have been both the right thing to do and a real Fck-You to the regime, by organizations with real power. It would have given many others more foundation to disobey. The entire point of this kind of regime action is to force others to obey. Not obeying is not merely symbolic, it is the first step in fighting tyranny.
YES, that alone is not sufficient. But it is a necessary first step. Google and Apple Failed.