
Apple Maps Updated with Giant Black Lives Matter DC Mural - tech-historian
https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/8/21283744/black-lives-matter-satelliite-apple-maps
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cmdshiftf4
"Black Lives Matter!" proclaim the megacorporations, some of whom recently had
a significant judgement against them for colluding to suppress the salaries of
their own staff in the US.

"Black Lives Matter!", they splash across their homescreens with a beat of the
chest, while their supply chains are intentionally filled to the brim with
people, sometimes _children_ , working in terrible, often physically
dangerous, conditions for terrible pay under authoritarian rulers.

These same megacorporations, apparently now fighting for equality, while
sheltering hundreds of billions, if not trillions, in tax havens or offshore
to prevent their profits from impacting the societies they operate in. They
who pay their CEOs in the hundreds of millions per year while offering only
cheap, temporary contracts to a vast amount of their workforce, often
minorities.

Pardon me, but I think my cynicism with this industry is peaking. Wake me up
when the same entities do something meaningful beyond shallow, populist
pandering.

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gowld
I think you missed a few words and pictures when you read the article. I'm
sure you read the article and accidentally missed a word or picture.

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tech-historian
If you're not using an Apple device and want to see the updated imagery,
DuckDuckGo uses Apple Maps:

1) Go to:
[https://duckduckgo.com/?q=888+16th+st+nw+washington+dc&t=hk&...](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=888+16th+st+nw+washington+dc&t=hk&ia=maps)

2) Click "Open Map"

3) Click the "Satellite" icon in the lower left and zoom in.

(Couldn't get a direct link to work. Perhaps due to some SPA silliness)

~~~
gruez
>(Couldn't get a direct link to work. Perhaps due to some SPA silliness)

works for me (tested in private window):
[https://duckduckgo.com/?q=888+16th+st+nw+washington+dc&t=hk&...](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=888+16th+st+nw+washington+dc&t=hk&ia=maps&natb=v224-6rk&cp=atbsc&iaxm=maps)

still have to switch to satellite view manually, though.

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Mountain_Skies
One can look at this as an expression of support for BLM, and perhaps Apple
actually does, but the reality is that the mural does exist on the road today
and anyone using Apple Maps to get around benefits from the maps reflecting
the current reality. Same goes for the street renaming. The only way I can see
this being controversial is if the mural is removed or the street name is
reverted and Apple Maps isn't updated to reflect those changes.

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slenk
Yet they can't keep Taiwan separate from China?

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jtr1
I see they used the photo from before the addition of "= Defund the Police"

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fsckboy
Seems to me to be a mistake for Apple beause they've now opened themselves up
to the liability of editing any part of the world imagery to the benefit of
various aggrieved parties including foreign governments because they can no
longer use the defense "we can't do that, system doesn't work that way, it's
automatic, etc etc"

~~~
mcphage
> they can no longer use the defense "we can't do that, system doesn't work
> that way, it's automatic, etc etc"

Have they ever used that defense for Apple Maps?

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fsckboy
you are not parsing my sentence the way I constructed it. I could say "after
your recent psychological testing, you can no longer use an insanity defence".
You could say, "I've never used an insanity defence" and I could say "yes but
you have had these [incidents] and you might have more, but now you can't use
an insanity defence [which might have come in handy]"

I was making the point that search engines and social media companies have
come under a lot of pressure from different quarters to censor, ban, modify,
etc. in the past, and I expect them to in the future, and "mapping" is a
database search, and I would think that companies would like to preserve their
"hands off" facade rather than throw it away on PR.

I was making a good and reasonable point, but HN is neither good, nor
reasonable, it is a hypersensitive groupthink mob which [anticipating those
who leap to its defense] has an overweening prideful sense of itself.

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mcphage
You aren't parsing my sentence in the way I constructed it. I could say "has
there been any incident in the past in which Apple Maps has used that
defense?".

~~~
fsckboy
my sentence was about the future, not the past. I could say "it is going to
rain tomorrow" and you could ask me about the past and ... you would be moving
off topic.

