this post was submitted on 12 Feb 2025
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Regardless of your stance on the name change, doesn't the executive order (and subsequent updating of the names register or whatever it's called) make it official? In which case the maps are just being updated to reflect it.
Afaik they're not changing it anywhere outside the US as (so far...) that's the only place it's been changed, so it's not like they're pushing that name in places where it's not official.
It's also not unheard of to have map details that vary depending on where you are, to align with the official stance of wherever the map is being viewed from. Ukraine, bits of the India/Pakistan border, IIRC some islands off Japan disputed by China, etc.
Not saying the name change isn't stupid and not suggesting at all that the companies in question aren't scum, but getting angry at the map maintainers for this change seems pointless. What did you expect them to do?
Am I missing something?
Thank you for taking the time to post this. I didn’t have the energy to explain to all the teenagers here that these companies have two choices: comply with this completely legal name change, or go to war with the White House over it to make some kind of statement. Gee I’d love it if big companies were out there jousting windmills over principles but I’d never expect it in a million years, at any stage of capitalism or under any other economic system. The business of business is business.
Google Maps shows the translation of Gulf of America in parentheses in all languages, everywhere. That's like if Mexico renamed the gulf to La biblioteca and they changed it for everyone. That's objectively wrong.
As absolutely stupid as this is, it's no different than changing the maps to show Denali rather than Mount McKinley. I don't think you're missing anything.
Is it no different, or is it different in a kind of huge obvious way? Denali is US property. The gulf ain't.
Anglophones call Deutschland "Germany", and we don't even share a border with them.
Also meaningfully different, unless there is an executive order or it's anglo-equivalent I'm unaware of. Many languages have a name for other countries that is different than the name those countries give themselves. Shall we use Germany itself as an example? How do you say South Africa in German? Südafrika, not Republic of South Africa, Republiek van Suid-Afrika, or any other the other 11 official languages from that country.
Okay, sure, but that's just a translation of South and Africa and everyone knows Germans physically cannot resist compound words, so how about France?
It ain't République française, or even Französische Republik. It's Frankreich. This stuff generally happens organically and language develops slower than politics, as evidenced by Frankreich. That's a lot different than this Executive Order. That's an imperial move.