this post was submitted on 30 Aug 2026
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Honestly, this is pure overreaction once again. It's well known that Google (and most non-OSS maps) show their information for your location based on the official sources for that location. The new, official name in the US for Lake Ontario is Lake America, like it or not. That this is stupid, unhinged and a fully retarded Trump take is true, but it's official for the American side. Canada could do the same and call it Lake Canada. It doesn't change how other countries call it, but any country could name it the way it wants.
This is not some Trumpist at Google doing insider work. This is not a conspiracy of Google supporting Trump. It's that Google maps is querying its data from some source and pushing it into maps, as they do with any country official source, if it's available.
Again, not defending Google's other shit or Trumps madness, but in this case they're showing the correct data. What's the issue here?
Google 100% supports trump. as do Amazon, Facebook, and Apple.
That's Sundar Pichai
There has never been a square meter of dirt that deserved a bomb dropped on it more than that square meter of dirt in that photo. The world would instantly be a better place.
Private companies are not compelled to follow executive orders. They are instructions for the executive branch of the us government, per article 2 of the us constitution situation. Not the entire country. Not even the entire US government. Trump acts as if he is a king with limitless power, and then proceeds as if it were true. It works because the current US government is happy to play along, as are giant corpos, such as Google, et al. This is a massive psyop brothers and sisters. Use Google when you have to. Use Amazon if you have to. Fill up your gas tank and wash your lettuce. But for god’s sake do not be fooled, and do not play along.
It is their practice but it's not a law of nature, or even a law of any kind. As an American company they could have shown balls and ignored Trump shenanigan. Expectedly, they didn't.
They could do the right thing and resist the fascism. You know, like how anybody with a platform and a moral compass would do. But I suppose expecting shitty companies to not be shitty is too much to ask.
This is not about what you consider fascism, or who you like or not. Trump has been elected, and even if it's because of a bunch of morons, but he is rightfully and unfortunately the president. He threw a tantrum once again, and renamed the lake for the US - again, also rightfully, as any country could do, and any other country may ignore it, as they also do. Google Maps (specifically Maps, not Google as a corp) job is to provide accurate cartography, and in the US the accurate and legitimate name is now Lake America.
Lol what are you even trying to do here
He only has the power to do that for the executive branch. He can’t compel citizens or corporations to follow along - not with the law anyway. He is getting away with it because the people whose pockets he’s lining are happy to play along as long as number goes up. That’s all they care about.
Exactly. And when companies and citizens are rushing to comply out of either fear of retribution or the hope that sycophancy will keep them in the protected "in-group"?...
Thats fascism.
He's also threatening companies with legal action if they don't follow his every whim. Trump is a 10 year old bully daydreaming about being a mob boss in an 80 year old corpse.
How exactly are you imagining Maps doing that change, taking this as a specific example? Pichai's red trump phone ringing? Immediate order within Google after someone read Trump's xwitter posts?
For the US Google polls the data from GNIS (which is an official government entity), just as there is the CGNDB for Canada, OSNGD for the UK, CGA for Australia, and something similar for anything that's remotely considered a first world country.
This is not a political change, it probably would cost Google more effort to not follow the rename, instead of relying on the systems and processes that are in place for years already.
If this were about pulling data from GNIS, it would have taken at least a month to show up on their platform. Its governent data and legacy data pipelines.
Some Google developer had to write an entry for this to happen so fast. 100%.
You've got anything even remotely close to a source, or is it just "100% trust me bro" rambling?
Do you have a source for Google pulling for GNIS? I can't imagine it would be an easy thing to collate with Google's own data about geographical features.
https://x.com/NewsFromGoogle/status/1884012692048166951
https://blog.google/products-and-platforms/products/maps/gnis-lake-ontario-lake-america-name-change/
Collating datasets is easier than creating datasets, especially in this size. Literally every single lake, landmark, mountain, street, county, district, points of interest and fuck knows what else, everything with their actual coordinates. It's a massive dataset, and it's massively painful to collect and keep up to date, even for someone like Google. And it's not only saving effort and resources, but also makes discussions like those here obsolete, because they literally do not have their own database.
Not Google's job to take on the US government, that was the role of the people
And It'll be our role to burn down their offices and data centers.
and then where in your fantasy are you sitting in jail? or is this some sort of french revolution fantasy you're having?
Simping for fascists. Nice.
Then why does Google show "Gulf of America" in brackets to Europeans? Why did Google update "Lake America" to Americans faster than the actual usgs maps?
Sycophancy is the answer.