Summary
Google has reclassified the U.S. as a “sensitive country” following Trump’s announcement to rename the Gulf of Mexico as the “Gulf of America” and Mount Denali as Mount McKinley.
The designation, typically reserved for nations with border disputes or strict governments, reflects the growing challenges tech companies face under Trump’s second term.
Google Maps has prioritized updating these name changes, treating them similarly to disputed regions like the Persian Gulf.
The reclassification may impact how Google handles U.S. geographic labels moving forward.
Renaming shit on maps is part of erasing that a people ever existed there at all. The towns in Poland my family came from aren’t on any maps any more. Their names exist only in stories passed down to me, and to a few people who also received them still living where those towns used to be. That I didn’t even know for 33 years where to find the towns in my great great grandmother’s stories was exactly the aim of the ethnic cleansing that brought her here.
I get that it seems silly and ridiculous and like a big distraction to a lot of people, and on some level, yes, that is the point of renaming shit on maps when you’re just going to do the killings anyway, but also… The point is the killings, and when a big authoritarian dickhead shows up saying he wants to rename shit on a map? Freak the fuck out. This dude plans to kill.