Google redraws the borders on maps depending on who’s looking (2020) | Hacker News Reader

Google redraws the borders on maps depending on who’s looking (2020)

washingtonpost.com

40 pointseatonphil70 comments

It’s pretty obvious why:

Country 1 has a law saying that incorrect maps are illegal and Area A is part of country 1.

Country 2 has a law saying that incorrect maps are illegal and Area A is part of country 2.

If you want to do business in both countries you have to play by their local rules. Which means showing the boundaries as that country defines it while within that country.

And it is also why every company that works with countries having contentious borders tends to have multiple map decks depending yo whom you interact with.

And some states are playing funny games with their geography restrictions like China : https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restrictions_on_geographic_d...

IMO, it exemplifies what I see as a new emergent trend of no shared realities.

It is funny to call boundaries on a map a "reality." They are almost a perfect example of a purely fantastical notion. It isn't as if people are disagreeing about the charge of the electron.

National borders are very real to most nations. Similarly, someone's specific plot of real estate feels very real to them as well. You may not always be able to see them but you can't always see an electron either. That doesn't make them any less "real."

Absolutely absurd. Boundaries, whether national or those of personal property, are absolutely and clearly social conventions and have no reality outside of social convention. I can't believe I have underline this point. We can argue about the utility of these social conventions, even about whether they constitute some kind of ideal reality, but in both cases they clearly fail to rise to the level of observable, objective reality. If all signs of human beings vanished, aliens arriving at earth could not tell where one state ended and another began even if the idea made sense to them because borders are not part of reality.

At no time in history have national borders ever been a universally shared reality and frankly, they could only be such by coincidence, not as a reflection of any genuine physical state of affairs beyond the state of mind of every human on earth.

Whether or not a social convention is "real" or not is entirely the point of my original comment. If we throw out arbitrary sets of social conventions and call them fake we effectively operate in our own non-shared reality.

My primary point is that this trend seems to be accelerating from my perspective so it's fitting for online maps to reflect this as well.

"If we throw out arbitrary sets of social conventions and call them fake we effectively operate in our own non-shared reality."

No, we all operate in the same reality no matter what. That is kind of what "reality" is - the set of physical facts which obtain regardless of our particular state of mind or coordinate system, local velocity, etc. The idea that we should elevate some subjective opinions to the level of reality that we expect everyone to share is actually really damaging to the idea of truth and objective reality.

No doubt accidentally, you're advocating for a subjective notion of what is real, not an objective one.

I think that you may be misunderstanding the terminology being used. When someone says that two people operate in a non-shared reality, they mean that their way of perceiving, understanding, and interpreting the world are so different that it becomes difficult for them to communicate effectively or operate effectively in the same culture.

No one is saying that different people are subject to different natural laws. Nor is anyone saying that certain perceptions or interpretations of the world should be elevated to the level of natural laws.

Sorry, but its quite difficult for me to understand the assertion that a failure to agree upon borders is a breakdown of a shared "reality" as anything but an assertion that certain perceptions should be elevated to the level of natural laws.

I don't dispute the utility of shared social conventions and rules. They are very handy, no doubt. But they aren't reality, and, in my experience, the people most vociferously asserting that they are are the jerks.

If two nation states _agree_ on a border because it simplifies administration, then bravo. If two nation states disagree about a border then the problem isn't that one has lost touch with reality. The problem is just a dispute about power and suggesting its a problem with perception of reality is propaganda. At a fundamental level borders aren't real. If there is a conflict over them, the only recourse is to the human beings involved, hopefully through diplomacy, but unfortunately often through violence, but never via an objective process which reveals by experimental or theoretical action an objective truth.

Confusion between that which is real and that which is not is the deepest, most destructive of intellectual maladies.

Shared reality doesn't break down when people disagree. It breaks down when people are unable to understand the other side's perceptions/interpretations enough to understand the disagreement.

As a concrete example, many conservatives in the United States understand border control in terms of national security, sovereignty, cultural integrity, etc. They often do not understand the interpretations that advocates of open borders base their views upon; things like viewing freedom of movement as an inherent human right, seeing borders as a way that corporations undermine labor, seeing Mexicans as having historically inhabited the American South West, etc. As a result, those conservatives misinterpret advocates of open borders as unpatriotic, attempting to undermine America's sovereignty, attempting to replace their culture, etc.

Basically, the issue isn't the disagreement, it's lacking the shared understanding of the situation that would allow discussion of the disagreement.

Boundaries are real in the sense that they have real impacts on people's lives. If you cross a boundary you aren't supposed to then you are likely to get arrested or shot. Which boundary you are born in can determine which school you go to. Etc.

No one is saying that those boundaries cannot change in the future or that if history had been different then today's boundaries might be different.

My point is that lamenting the fact that nation states disagree about boundaries as evidence that shared reality is breaking down is absurd because nation states have rarely agreed, as a matter of course, on where boundaries are. Indeed, even personal property boundaries are often not as certain as you'd like. My property has a large triangle of land which is disputed with my neighbor, for example, because of differences in surveys at different times.

At the level of political science, most people understand international relations to be, more or less, a sort of state of anarchy, where boundaries are nothing but a bare reflection of power. From this point of view, most calls for "agreement" about a disputed boundary are nothing more than demands by one party for the other to accede to their claim of what they own. I personally believe that this kind of bickering by nation states is pretty far beneath the dignity of the label of "real" and all human beings would be better off if we appreciated that fact.

>[...] nation states have rarely agreed, as a matter of course, on where boundaries are [...]

There are far far more contemporary examples of nations agreeing on where the boundaries are than examples of them not agreeing. The status quos is generally agreement.

I'd be willing to hazard a guess that very few borders on earth between nation states have no disputed areas, but in any case, even if this were true it is a state of affairs no more than a few hundred years old and many borders were arbitrarily drawn by world powers sometimes even for sinister reasons (for a good example, read about the border between Armenia and Azerbaijan). Throughout most of history firm borders were simply impossible to define. I object strongly to raising them to the level of a "shared reality."

I think that people can still have a shared reality as long as they understand that there is a disagreement. For example, Google could have done what many map makers do and explicitly indicate where borders are disputed.

It seems like you are getting hung up on the idea that "real" means that something can be proven using physical laws. For most people in most circumstances, that's not a particularly useful way of defining real. Usually, "real" is defined as something like "the facts on the ground that impact our lives".

Take for example, Taiwan. The facts that people mean when they talk about Taiwan's borders being real are something like: Taiwan's status is in dispute between China and most of the rest of the world. In order to maintain diplomatic relations and prevent war, most of the world has adopted a policy of officially ignoring the dispute while unofficially supporting Taiwan's independence. In terms of day to day governance, Taiwan is independent from China. For example, the reality of the Taiwanese border is that there is a dispute between China and most of the rest

I've got no problem with people informally using the word real in the way you suggest (and in fact I only reference things like electron charge as exemplars of the objective, not to suggest that we can only speak of the brutally physical as real). Nevertheless, however, asserting that a border is "real" or ought to be thought of as real is not a description of "the facts on the ground that impact our lives," it is an assertion that some particular state of affairs should be acceded to by some set of people. Characterizing it as a dispute about reality is deeply disingenuous.

> I think that people can still have a shared reality as long as they understand that there is a disagreement. For example, Google could have done what many map makers do and explicitly indicate where borders are disputed.

But that's exactly what they do already, when allowed to.

Have a look at Jammu Kashmir. If you're not located in India or Pakistan, the disputed borders are shown as dotted lines rather than the normal solid lines for national borders. If you look at the details of any location in the region (e.g. the city of Jammu), it won't show any country.

Now, if you're in India, it'll not display any disputed borders and instead show the entire area being a part of India. But showing the dotted line isn't an option, showing these borders is required by the local laws. And you wouldn't want a multinational company to try to flout the laws of the countries they're operating in, would you?

While I agree with your general point, “are absolutely and clearly social conventions and have no reality outside of social convention” is overstating things. Differences in policies over time results in changes to the regions that would be clearly visible to aliens. (Guess where the border is: https://i.imgur.com/IW1JBAP.png)

No credit for saying “all signs of humans beings vanish”, the same logic applied to biology would suggest that life was a social construct, as if all signs of life were removed, there'd be no evidence of life.

> National borders are very real to most nations. Similarly, someone's specific plot of real estate feels very real to them as well

The borders of plots of land are frequently disputed. There are plenty of places in the US where two or more deeds define overlapping properties (which should obviously never be the case, but here we are!).

Country borders are no different, and it's unsurprising that they very frequently disagree. The US and Canada have disputed territory, even. To suggest that borders are "real" in any sense implies that there's one correct, canonical set of boundaries. But there's not and never has been. There's no singular authority that decides what the borders should be. Wars are literally being fought right now over borders.

A border is much more real and tangible than an electron with its charge. Don't believe me? Try crossing one.

People cross borders all the time, but the charge of an electron has been the same since moments after the birth of the universe and nothing anyone can do appears to be able to change it.

Great, so if you yourself ever crossed the border you may have noticed that guards are very real and their guns too. Electron meanwhile is only modeled and is not even possible to see.

The assertion that the charge of an electron is more real than the border between the US and Canada, for instance, is pretty compelling. What is the former assertion? I would suggest its most reasonable interpretation is that there exist a set of rituals which, when performed, regardless of who, where, or when throughout the observable universe and the vast majority of time, will always produce the same results and that these rituals furthermore imply a compelling ontology which is consistent, with maniacal precision, with a large number of non-ritualized phenomena throughout time and space. That is to say, less poetically, that an electron is a particular realization of the essential character of the universe, or, as physicist like to put it: particles are unitary representations of the Poincaré group.

A border is, in comparison, next to nothing. Transient in time and nearly meaningless in space. Surely of consequence to human beings but only via other human beings. Indeed, the very fact that armed men are willing to kill for the transgression of such a pitiful thing is a brutal absurdity which does little to recommend us as a species.

I like your poetic take. However, a border has meaning. Electron's charge doesn't. In fact, "electron" is an idea we invented to represent some physical prediction, while a border is a thing we made.

Armed men and brutality suck but if you think of countries as living beings (eg. country as anthill and citizens as ants, or country as human and citizen as cell/neuron) then it is kinda understandable.

It only matters to the empire builders and scale bots. They are the ones who are desperate for common reality to simplify their mindless goals usually planted in their head by some other dumbass.

End of the day everyone has a 3 inch chimp brain. Its not designed for common reality.

2 brains growing in same environments, exposed to the same things through their live can turn out to have totally different beliefs. And thats just looking at my own family members.

Its like planting 2 seeds in the same soil, giving them the same sun and water dont produce the same exact number of leaves, flowers or fruits.

Humans are inherently social creatures. That is why solitary confinement is a particularly cruel and dreaded punishment. In order to have social order there needs to be some semblance of a shared reality.

“Reality” had always been fragmented. People across the mountain range would have different beliefs, measurement units and traditions. E.g. talk to people from different countries which food is healthy or what to do to prevent cold.

I'd argue the trend since industrialization has been to standardize on social conventions. In the last decade, I'd further argue this trend is reversing.

It is also why "Don't be evil" was a silly thing for a corporation to claim as a motto. What is evil in one jurisdiction is required in another. Corporations that want to serve the global market have to decide between principles and profits.

It's "don't be evil," not "do no evil." They're accepting of small amounts of evil so long as it doesn't come to characterize the company.

Every sprint, each engineer gets 7 story points and 3 evil points (less than 50% evil!). But if you're really ambitious, you can roll over your evil points and accrue them for a greater evil later. That's how we end up with things like privacy sandboxes and web integrity. Such launches are typically celebrated with ritualistic intern sacrifices and handlebar mustache stickers for the whole team.

I agree “don’t be evil” is pretty naive, as if the world were so black and white.

Do you believe the current state is problematic though?

I don’t see what’s so wrong with showing each country their preferred map, as regulated. Who is being harmed?

Also, wouldn’t it be weird for some international megacorp to start meddling in geopolitics by drawing lines the “right” way?

Well, what do you show to the rest of the world? I have seen and personally visited such places so I know about dotted lines, but its hard to not take any form of side and be truly neutral, even for google (it wasnt in places I checked).

I think every country has recognized map of other countries. E.g. US has officially recognized borders of Ukraine.

Those aren’t neutral either, however. The only way to be neutral in this regard would be to show not just the recognized borders and specifying that they’re not agreed upon, but show WHY they’re recognized (NATO consideration, anti-Russian sentiment in USA politicians, etc).

Google has no obligation to be politically neutral. Even if they wanted political neutrality, it’s often an impossible goal to achieve in practice.

Indeed. Corporations whose shareholders expect them to extract profits from all countries have to accept that they cannot be politically neutral. They must put profit ahead of principle.

Profits ahead of what principle?

It’s not virtuous to be neutral. Are you neutral on free speech? What does that even mean? Are you “neutral” on the oppression of women or lgbt people? On women in the workforce? On respect for the elderly?

Values are like accents. Only people who haven’t travelled can convince themselves that they don’t have an accent - or that their value system is somehow globally “neutral”.

I never suggested neutrality. Quite the opposite.

Yes, those of us who have traveled are quite aware that it would make sense to provide an option in the UI to show something other than what the local government wants us to see.

My point remains. Google has no other option. They obey the jurisdictions from which they derive profits.

no you are wrong - there are declared areas of dispute, and then those are also disputed. The world is a big place.

Even in a world of greys, there is light grey and dark grey. "Don't be evil" is an aspiration to acknowledge that principles exist and it would be better to adhere to them. Although obviously a company like Google isn't capable of doing that.

Although this doesn't count as evil. Showing locally adjusted maps is hardly even a light grey zone. If the authorities in country A say the border is there, draw it there when producing maps for that country. It is not complicated and it is a silly place to pick a fight - Google would lose if they lost and do nothing useful for anyone if they won. Nobody cares where Google thinks the borders are, they don't have an army and we do have VPNs.

> Nobody cares where Google thinks the borders are

there was a documented instance of a military action in Columbia-region IIR that allegedly relied on Google Maps. It is easy to see misinformation, but also easy to see actually low-literacy armed people doing something aggressive Once Again, relying on something that is easy to use.

What I see is a warmongering administration that wanted to go to war and was going to pick any reason to do so. Yes Google was the convenient excuse, but if Google didn’t do that, they would have found the next excuse.

Let’s look at the Russia situation now. Google didn’t draw Ukraine as part of Russia. And yet Putin found some reasons anyway.

Well like 13 years ago Nicaragua invaded part of Costa Rica, in part claiming that Google Maps put that land in their territory. https://www.wired.com/2010/11/google-maps-error-blamed-for-n...

Both as a joke but also in seriousness: if the Nicaraguan army can't figure out where the border is, how is Google meant to know?

In practice a key part of the army's job to decide where the border is. The commander is scapegoating to hide his own incompetence. Google's mapping may have contributed, but the lack of demarcation showing where the border is would have been a bigger issue. If the Google Maps aspect was enough to end up in the wrong country it was going to happen without Google being involved.

Wouldn't be the first time: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/08/world/europe/elon-musk-uk...

Where censorship is occurring, I think it would be better for Google to show that different representations exist and allow the user to pick from them. I realize they they cannot implement such a feature without losing out on revenue from at least one of those jurisdictions.

> allow the user to pick from them

This is basically what happens now because it goes by what the government says and the government is representative of the people.

You might be tempted to say oh but some governments are despotic and don’t represent the people. Sure maybe, but it’s not Googles place to determine when that is or isn’t true. And if did try to do that, I’m sure there be criticism of sowing revolution or something

We are in agreement that Google is limited by what is legal. This is what I originally wrote. If they want profits from both jurisdictions, they will not make a principled decision.

They are making a principled decision:

The principle is: follow the laws of the countries you operate in.

You seem to be under the impression that Google should be the arbiter of true moral right and subvert what Governments have decided for their nations.

That is not what I wrote.

Who is to say what the borders are? Making them suit the tastes of a locale isn’t necessarily evil.

Principles are an interesting thing. Whose principles? Even in a region like the United States you'll find that many principles aren't consistent.

Quite often people don't consider the principle differences others, even around them, have.

I think you're wrong: what should Google have done here? Which country should Google take the side of? Arguably it's not ethically better to choose one country's self defined borders over another. Would Google be in the right to decide for themselves what the borders are?

Frankly I think it's very not-evil to show people what they expect to see. If my country adopts a time zone, I expect the times that I see to be in that timezone and not the one some company decided for me. If I look at a map, I want to see boundaries that are relevant. What if Google suggested I go to a place that was actually outside of my country's recognized borders and I couldn't reenter because I didn't bring appropriate documentation?

I guess what I'm saying is there's implicit evil in making a choice of which country to believe because nobody here is inherently right. And even if they did, showing citizens of X things which the people of X do not agree is correct is definitely not serving your users.

I am a citizen of the United States browsing from with the United States.

When I view the boundary between Ukraine and Russia, it shows me the dotted line around Crimea. I think it should indicate that there are at least two governments that have different ideas here and let me see their representation of the border. It should show me that it shows other people something different and make it easy to see what it shows them.

This is something a politically neutral Google would do. A Google that wants to get advertising money from both jurisdictions has no choice but to self-censor, as Google currently does. Google has made an understandable decision to put profit ahead of principles.

And in the case of India and Pakistan, where both countries have laws requiring the borders to be drawn in different specific ways? Just don't show borders at all? Make the product unavailable?

I am not saying that Google the corporation can do anything other than what it is doing, no matter how evil that might be interpreted by those who have lost loved ones to the Kashmir conflict.

Windows 95 was almost banned by India because the time zone picker map drew Kashmir in Pakistan.

https://www.cnet.com/tech/tech-industry/how-eight-pixels-cos...

The People’s Republic of China also took offense to the operating system.

https://www.nytimes.com/1996/09/30/business/offending-softwa...

And India actually suspended Al Jazeera for the same reason.

https://time.com/3832585/india-al-jazeera-suspended-kashmir-...

Back in the day, Microsoft figured it was easier to simply erase all the borders.

https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20030822-00/?p=42...

Another "fun" thing: it is illegal in Russia for maps to show "wrong" borders and that, of course, includes the border with Ukraine. According to Russian constitution amendments of last year, the four regions of Ukraine and Crimea should be shown as part of Russia.

At least two of Russian mapping services, Yandex maps and 2gis, did the strangest thing last year: they stopped showing borders AT ALL. If you click on anything in one of the disputed regions, the address would not include a country either.

Russia is a pariah state like North Korea. There's no legal business to be done in either country.

A thought came to me after reading all the comments -

Say there's a country which wants this from Google, but they're are not sufficient users of those maps there. Does Google then overrule that country's request?

https://ghostarchive.org/archive/IuG0R

Nations today are little more than the elite's formalized control over capital and labor. We are better off without nations.

Yeah, then we'd be individuals formally controlled by capital as labor.

That’s exactly what Russia is trying to do to my people. Erase language, identity and such.

This take is so hot it gives off x-ray blackbody radiation.

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