Mexican President Threatens to Sue Google Over 'Gulf of America' Label on Maps.
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You wanna know what’s cool about language? It changes over time. So while the origin of a word may mean one thing, it can eventually mean something else as well or even something entirely different. Cool used to just mean temperature, but it eventually also came to refer to the attitude of a person or even how likable they are in common usage. Nimrod was a mythical hunter but thanks to Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd now means a stupid person. Same with “America” referring originally a set of continents. In common usage it has come to mean referencing the United States of America, mostly because people are lazy and is so much easier to say “American” than it is to describe something as “from the United States of America”. You can resist the change all you want, but eventually you sound like some old person that says automobile instead of car since car originally meant an individual portion of a train.
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It's the details that make up the whole picture.
As an isolated situation, the renaming thing may be stupid and not worth giving any credence. Energy can be spent resisting elsewhere in more useful places. However along with the rest of the actions of billionare corpos that kissed the ring, it's part of the overall trend with devastating consequences. Bullshit details shouldn't be ignored, but acknowledged as "they're fucking us from all directions right now and waging war on reality, and we really should stop letting them".
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Tragically we have a dried apricot ceding power to the highest bidder. There isn't much for other countries to do directly unless they are bidding directly for "sock puppet time" or getting in a pissing match with a clown that makes a juggalo look smart.
This is more about controlling (collateral) damage: in this case megacorps "kissing the ring" via stupid shit like Google is doing presently. Countries can fuck with corporations far easier than we can (guess who paid for sock puppet time...)
Google is clearly attempting to make themselves more "saleable" to the ruling party by dropping things like month names or renaming universally accepted names of global features. Right now their -baseline- is where we are at currently. A lawsuit does next to nothing. It's an operating cost. A country threatening to blacklist their service will hit them cleanly in the only thing that matters: their shareholders. Our biggest corporations have time and again rolled over for this tactic. They may have elevated themselves to a godlike status within the states but they are vulnerable outside our shores.
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You think Google and Apple should call it the Gulf of America?
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If it's in english and it shows up like that then it's most likely because you have your language set to english (USA).
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This is stupid. Google is doing it with their normal process, labeling the USA as a sensitive country in their system and changing the label only for the sensitive snowflakes. So there is no harm to Mexicans in Mexico.
What sort of damages would she assert anyway? That her country suffers in a significant way from a Google Maps label that can only be seen from the sensitive country? How so?
And if it's a political move what is she hoping to achieve? Google will never cave to the USA before Mexico, they depend more on their US operations than their Mexican ones. So she can't achieve anything politically. Does she want to draw even more attention to a losing fight? A losing fight over mere symbolism no less? Why?
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The Gulf of America label can be seen worldwide as it's Gulf of Mexico (Gulf of America)
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Do it honey. Make em pay for suckin orange ass
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Oh, sorry. You're right. I was wrong on that point. I didn't realize it showed the sensitive label in parenthesis to others.
I would maintain the rest of the argument though, with the Mexican (and global) point of view being the more prominently displayed, there is no significant harm, and she doesn't stand to gain anything from pursuing a civil case, nor politically.
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It's stupid, but it's not that extreme. Countries have different names for things. For example, Germany calls the Baltic Sea "Ostsee" (lit. east sea) and Lake Constance 'Bodensee" (lit. bottom sea) but those things are only at the bottom and east for Germany.
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There's a slight difference in that "Ostsee" is the common name. If the German chancellor decides to call it "Deutsche See" tomorrow, the name would continue to be "Ostsee", because that's how language usually works.
"Gulf of America" is just a dictator's wish of a common name. The people of OpenStreetMap decided to use the tag "official_name:en_US" for that reason, while keeping "Gulf of Mexico" for the commonly used "name:en-US".
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Reality has to BE.
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Interestingly (or not) it's also used in French but only in one case that I'm aware of. Monsieur is abbreviated to M. while messieurs (plural) is MM.
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My point is the names are different in different places. At some point, people named things from their perspective irregardless of what others, including those living adjacent to the thing cal it
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I'm suggesting that if Trump wants to be the one to cross the Rubicon, let Trump be the one to cross it. No need to meet him on the other side first.
In theory yes, Google should face no consequences for publishing an inaccurate map. There's actually an old tradition of publishing maps with at least 1 inaccuracy in order to catch forgeries, which has never been a legal issue in the US. It shouldn't be any more controversial than a published document choosing to call Jerusalem "Al-Quds"
In practice, I imagine Trump will throw a tantrum and try to argue that Google doesn't have the right to say no to him. And if that's the stance he wants to take, disregarding the constitutional protections that Google ought to have, let his administration waste time and resources arguing that in the courts. If he wins, then we can all stop pretending the constitution means anything, and if he loses, it's a blow to his ego, resources wasted, and we can turn the focus on other companies to say they have an ethical obligation to change the names back.
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If we’re going to play that demagogic game, why not make “United States of America” be shown as “United States of North America” to reclaim the continent name back? Companies will comply if it’s an official request.
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The new name shows only for USA. In Mexico it’s unchanged, or shown with both names.
Our president is dumb and just wants to look like she’s fighting back.
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Where will the lawsuit be filed in?
Mexican courts? Good luck getting an American company to comply.
US Courts, well... surely no judge would be biased right? glances at the composition of the US Supreme court
International Courts? Lol like they have any power at all.
Reminds me of The Expanse:
"Earth Court? Mars Court? What Inner court gives Belters justice?"
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First, what laws are violated? Doubt international law touches this, US law maybe?
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Mexican courts? Good luck getting an American company to comply.
Why not? Brazilian courts ordered Twitter to ban some people, Twitter refused, court treated to jail Brazilian Twitter legal representatives, Twitter closed their Brazilian office to shield itself from Brazilian courts, Brazilian courts ordered ISPs to block Twitter because they had no legal representatives on the country, after a couple of weeks without Brazilian access Twitter bow down, rehired their legal representatives and complied with Brazilian court orders.
Don't see why Mexican courts couldn't do the same with Google Maps.
