14 DAY TRIAL // Google Maps is one of the leading navigation applications around the world, used by millions of people to get around in a new country or city. However, it seems that a recent matter has caught the attention of users from Palestine.
A Gaza City-based journalism group claims that the nation of Palestine has been wiped from Google Maps, which has caused quite an outrage on social media, including Facebook and Twitter. The Forum of Palestinian Journalists has said in a statement that the group “condemns the crime carried out by Google in deleting the name of Palestine, and calls for Google to rescind its decision and apologize to the Palestinian people.”
Washington Post reports that Middle-Eastern media has demanded that Google relabel the region or even all of Israel as “Palestine.” The only discrepancy is that the region wasn’t labeled in such a way in the first place.
Google has reached out to Engadget and stated that "there has never been a 'Palestine' label on Google Maps, however we discovered a bug that removed the labels for 'West Bank' and 'Gaza Strip.' We're working quickly to bring these labels back to the area."
When users click on certain cities in the area, Google defines them as Palestinian and shows a dashed border around them. In addition, the provided Wikipedia knowledge box on Maps describes Palestine as a "de jure sovereign state," the same term that was set by the United Nations back in 2013.
The misunderstanding caused many from the region to switch to other geographic mapping services, like Apple Maps. The issue only goes to show how even an application can cause quite the stir in certain countries of the world, especially if they’re politically sensitive.