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Comment by aduffy | Hacker News Reader

This reminds me a bit of the Gulf of America fiasco from last year where if you changed your location to outside the US it would go back to showing Gulf of Mexico.

I'm not sure why they would do this for US users unless the US government requested it.

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Google maps has done this forever. A good chunk of countries have disputed territories, and never in human history there has been a "universal" map that everybody agrees on.

Sure, but I'm in the US, which is not a party to the conflict between Israel and Lebanon. To my knowledge the US continues to recognize Lebanon as a sovereign country.

This isn't happening on Google Maps though is it? We're just talking about Apple Maps here.

We had to build a very expensive and risky pier to get aid into to Gaza instead of just sending it through our ally Israel to be delivered over the ground. There's something different than a normal ally relationship.

A very expensive and risky pier that still just delivered the aid to an IDF base inside Gaza and not to Gazans (or aid orgs) directly. Based on a plan from an Israeli think tank...

Blame the Israeli public for not wanting to feed their enemy.

And not letting themselves or anyone else feed them either, huh?

It was so bad they had to post pictures of starving Syrians.

absolutely do blame the Israeli public for their state murdering innocent civilians in other countries (Palestine, Iran, Lebanon, Syria). It's their state, they should do something about it.

Not a party to the conflict? Are you joking? Don’t focus on what the US says. Focus on what it does.

Yea, that user made the most ridiculous statement.

I think the Onion did a piece saying something like "Netanyahu dead, Trump must go back to being the only president of the United States", and while satire, is a bit enlightening of the actual situation here.

In the case of the "Gulf of America" thing there was a clear and open statement by the executive that they wanted the maps changed (note that even in the US the name is still legally "Gulf of Mexico"). Apple and Google both decided to acquiesce to curry favor.

TMK there is no current government order to eliminate large swaths of Lebanon from maps. So the fact that Apple is doing this (seemingly on its own, despite all other mapping services reflecting the original place names) is the thing I'm explicitly calling out as being weird.

So does Israel, it’s not even a war with Lebanon it’s just happening there but the Lebanese government and armed are not participating in it

They hardly have electricity so there's nobody to fight back really. The international community left them to die after that big explosion and the country has been scraping by ever since.

It descended into the same malaise as every other islamic country without oil aka wealth transfer by the worlds economy?

What's a little occupied, extra-territorial buffer zone between respectful neighbors? Nothing says "I respect your sovereignty" more leveling all buildings to the ground. Golan now, there's nothing to see here.

I think part of the weird disbelief on my part is the speed with which those changes are submitted and implemented. I don't recall things changing that fast with disputed territories in Ukraine/Russia conflict.

i wouldn’t consider it very disputed, the only country “disputing” who it belongs to is israel. all other countries agree that area belongs to lebanon.

This is worldwide, not just for US users.

And most towns seem missing, including in areas Israel has never bombed.

It keeps blowing me away how brain dead the internet can be.

US government demanded it, not requested it

Associated Press was even banned from the White House for calling it the Gulf of Mexico: https://www.ap.org/the-definitive-source/announcements/ap-st...

Yeah, that was another one of the constant mask-off moments. The Party of Free Speech hates free speech.

> I'm not sure why they would do this for US users unless the US government requested it.

Because the US govt. is petty and vindictive at the moment.

> Because the US govt. is petty and vindictive at the moment.

And has been for many, many years.

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