Summary
Rep. Dan Crenshaw criticized Apple Maps for not renaming the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, as mandated by Trump’s recent executive order titled “Restoring Names that Honor American Greatness.”
Crenshaw’s complaint reflects broader conservative frustration, as tech platforms and the global community continue to use the original name.
Critics compare the move to past nationalist gestures like renaming french fries “freedom fries,” accusing conservatives of embracing identity politics and culture wars despite their political dominance.
The name change is unlikely to gain international traction.
Fuck, I honestly thought this was the Onion. Somebody get me out of this timeline. I withdraw consent for this simulation!
As someone who worked in mapping, many people don’t realize how much this kind of BS actually comes up.
The map you see in Google / Apple maps isn’t the map the whole world sees. What you see is what’s culturally / legally appropriate for viewers in your region.
For example, in parts of India it’s legally required that Jammu and Kashmir be displayed as being part of India on their maps. On Pakistan’s maps it’s legally required to be weirdly ambiguous, with a strange open border that doesn’t properly close. The rest of the world gets dotted lines indicating it’s complicated.
For most of the world the body of water between Korea, Japan and Vladivostok is labeled as “The Sea of Japan”, but users in Korea will see “The East Sea”. Is the body of water around Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, UAE, etc. the Persian Gulf or the Arabian Gulf? Depends on where you are when you ask that question.
This even has a strange effect when all the countries involved agree that a certain geographic feature is the border, but that geographic feature is a river. Some rivers, especially ones like the Amazon river keep shifting. Sediment piles up, erosion happens, and the river shifts. The river is still the border, but now someone has to go in and adjust the political border to match the river’s new position.
So, if Trump does do something official to rename the Gulf of Mexico, the online mapping companies (and any offline ones that are left) will probably follow the rule and rename it… for their American users. The rest of the world will still see it as the Gulf of Mexico. It will just be yet another one of those funny exceptions the companies have to keep track of while displaying maps for a certain subset of users.
The rest of the world will still see it as the Gulf of America.
of Mexico** I guess?
Er, yeah, that.
They want an efficient government not wasting time and resources on unnecessary things …
They get a government crying over the name of a body of water.
Their job is to do nothing and cede power and influence to unregulated, uncontrolled private interests of billionaires. It is now, was last week, and was years back. It is the merging and takeover of state power by corporate power.
And, as you no doubt already know, that merger has a name. But maybe it’s Roman inspired…
It’s a very important body of water, ok?!
It will be a body of oil soon enough. Then the world will probably get on board with the new name.
Fuck is he going to rename Lake Ontario too?! Lol
Indeed. It is the hurricane class five generating hot tub. How else could nature teach the most boneheaded MAGA-brains that climate change and global warming is real but by depopulating the coastal states…
They’ll be blaming the gays anyway.
Oh, no, it doesn’t work that way for them. See, if a natural disaster strikes a blue city/area, it’s god doling out punishment for their wickedness. If a natural disaster strikes a red city/area, it’s god testing their faith because he loves them so much.
Rename to gulf of Huracán to better represent what it does and the local storm god.
Pretty sure it’s called “Gulf of How The Fuck Does This Lower Grocery Prices”
If Apple changed the name to “Gulf of How The Fuck Does This Lower Grocery Prices” for a day in response I’d start using Apple Maps.
I’ll be happy with companies ignoring this to set the precedent that these executive orders are toothless.
Ahem. Umm, conservatives are angry that others are not calling something what THEY want it to be called?
Hmm. So… I just feel like… perhaps, there’s a similarity here. Some people… want to be referred to a specific way… but usually conservatives have a problem with that.
How about the rest of the world rename it to the “Gulf of Snowflakes” and see what America does
Well that just wouldn’t make any sense, they hardly get any snow down there!
New Orleans, Louisiana is currently covered in snow, I think Gulf of Snowflakes might actually be accurate right now.
I stand corrected
The three foot snow drift against my back door here in New Orleans would beg to differ.
Tbf, nothing like that has ever happened here before. I wonder if any kind of change is causing this? Hmmm.
What are the odds that a snowflake would rename the Gulf of Mexico and then it immediately actually snows on the Gulf of Mexico?!
On a serious note, hope you all are doing OK down there and it will melt ASAP.
Probably a freak tilting of the Earth’s disc. Nothing to worry about.
As someone up north we used to get those all the time, but they’ve gotten rare. I miss them
I used to live up north too. Don’t really miss them, ha. But I lived in the city so it just made everything a pain. Nothing fun like sledding or snow forts.
Its just nice to look out the windows and see a beautiful snowy landscape. Unlike a week later when everything is a gray haze and it’s something like -10c
We need to ask them what the Gulf’s pronouns are.
So, the Gulf of They/Them is what the rest of the world should call it? I can get behind that.
Whoever obeys Nazis, I will boycott your platform. Plain and simple.
I’m waiting to hear what they want to do with New Mexico
For people always calling the others “snowflakes” and “easily triggered”, they sure do have a thin skin.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you were so sensitive” is my response to these types IRL.
what’s funny is Trump didn’t directly change the name. that takes time. the relevant naming-people have to take it up and formally do it. All Trump did was order them to, and, uh, that only affects goverment things.
Everybody else, Apple included, are going to be using the familiar name. because Trump is a moron.
They’ll follow suit. Apple is not the company people think it is. Tim was at the information along with all the other oligarchy. I know people well make excuses like he had to and blah blah blah. But no he did not. This a a openly gay man who chose to go support people who hate him why because he loves money more.
I don’t know… Isn’t naming (and even country boundaries) already localized based on where the users are? Isn’t a possible scenario that Apple and others could show Gulf of America to US users and Gulf of Mexico to everyone else without even spending too much effort?
Yeah there’s already support to name things differently based on your locale. If you have an English locale you see “Germany”. Inside German it’s called Deutschland and if you’re in a Spanish speaking place it’s Alemania.
You could probably distinguish between en-us and en-gb to have different names in the USA and UK.
So yeah I totally think it’s possible.
I meant something even more radical than translating language. This is Google maps changing borders for disputed territories depending on what side of the dispute the user is: https://theweek.com/speedreads/451127/google-maps-changes-chinas-borders-based-viewers-locations .
I imagine Apple has similar policies too where they adhere to local regulations or just don’t want to piss their users in any country, so they just show everyone what the want to see.
So yes, they do have the tools to do it and on top of that they also have a consolidate tradition of doing it.
“Facts don’t care about your feelings snowflake.”
Wait until iOS Auto Corrects them typing Gulf of America to Gulf of Mexico but only after they hit send.
Maybe, but this is all a distraction from the actions that matter. They don’t want to debate the anti-trans stuff or the immigration stuff, which is objectively bad. They want to debate people not going with a made up name for a thing, which has no objectivity. The longer they can argue about this the less time there is to discuss anything important.
Its not just being thin skinned. It’s a strategy of distraction.
It’s always projection with these people.
Anyone else remember “freedom fries”? That’s what we were supposed to call french fries when conservatives were upset that the French were not supporting the US invasion of Iraq.
“Mission Accomplished” might be one of the greatest all time. And to think I thought that would be as low as it could get for our country.
Holy shit yes. I remember making fun of the doofus Bush Jr. But holy fuck do I wish him back compared to the current shit show.
Remember how if you didn’t want our boys coming home in flag draped coffins then you “Didn’t support out troops?”
Yes, and sauerkraut was “liberty cabbage” before that.
“Liberty cabbage” sounds very Orwellian. I guess “freedom fries” does too.
It predates 1984 by over 30 years!
Small dick energy.
Hey everyone, I just signed a lemmy order changing the name of maralago to gaping jizz hole. Enjoy!
I feel like an OSM edit is in order.
Please don’t vandalise OSM.
Thank you for your service, sir/madam. You’re already a better executive than some presidents I can think of, thinking of what the people want.
As the first matter of business I need to immediately address, my resignation. No one man is equipped to weild the power of the lemexcutive for much longer than I have.
Farewell lemmings. Until we shit post together again.
Time for everyone to start burner Open Street Maps accounts!
The government can fuck right off with their Newspeak.
This is a huge distraction to get you worked up about a meaningless name change. Elon is heiling on stage like an edgy teen for further drama. Meanwhile EO are signed en masse and action is taken by the new administration. This time Trump and his cronies came well prepared with a plan.
Who says I’m worked up? You wrote a whole paragraph, I wrote a quip.
This is not about you.
I forgot that apple was a department under the president
Tim Apple personally donated 1 million dollars to Trump
I feel sorry for Wozniak… Watching the company he helped build turn into what it has.
Wait, that really happened? I thought the gulf of Mexico renamed shit was just memeing. Google maps still shows the proper name instead of the tantrum name.
I thought the gulf of Mexico renamed shit was just memeing.
I have a feeling we’re going to be seeing a lot of “I didn’t think he would really do ____” in the coming weeks and months.
I was under no such illusions. He has no one to stop him this time around.
The president ordered it. There is no legal mechanism to compel private companies to use the new name.
If anything they’ll just show the new name to people in the US.
Google Maps does a lot of regional fuckery to comply with local lunatics. Indians see Kashmir as part of India, for example.
I mean, that’s every multinational company.
My job has international offices and during stand-ups, we get things like “Hey EU needs this thing. So figure it out engineers.” And we do the bare minimum to meet the requirements because bro I’m just trying to code and make a paycheck.
Have u ever been to Kashmir?
Nope.
I do vaguely remember seeing the bonkers border ceremony in a Michael Palin travel show from about 30 years ago. Seemed competitive, yet oddly friendly.
Not familiar with the show but that was definitely the Atari border ceremony at wagah in Amritsar, Punjab and not Kashmir.
Either way, don’t try to equate anything happening near Kashmir to what is happening here. Those are land borders with people living on either side with very real tangible “everyday” problems to whatever pax Americana you have going on in the US.
There is no legal mechanism to compel private companies to use the new name.
There is also no legal mechanism to require any other country on the planet to pay attention to Trump’s stupid and pointless attempt at renaming it.
Technically can I name it Gulf of Trump can kiss my ass?
I’ll cosign
Edit: co-sign? Fuck it…I’m going to bed
I’d cosine, but I’d probably find myself on a tangent
Are eggs cheaper because of this?
