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.
Republicans upset that nobody respects their name change? Huh. Snowflakes.
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.
Executive orders have no control over non-government entities. They are just official instructions given to lower executive office departments on how to operate.
President just orders the police to kill everyone, who names it wrongly…
Now private business can decide if they want to comply or not.
Private business, with wealth exceeding that of nations, then hire mercenaries and assassins, and within a week the Senate, House, Judiciary and Executive branches are empty. Now the Federal government can decide if they want to try anything.
The police forces are managed by state governments, not federal.
President orders the FBI to shoot every local police who doesnt shoot everyone…
Can the president unilaterally change the names of anything he wants? Seems like there at least needs to be a vote on this.
That’s what an executive order is isn’t it? The pres just saying this is how something is without challenge
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_of_Mexico#Maritime_boundary_delimitation_agreements
Some of the gulf is international waters, and some is owned by Mexico/Cuba. But that was in a world where agreements mattered.
An executive order is just official instructions to a lower office on how they are to operate. They have no legal authority outside of that purpose. They are not laws. They do not apply to the public or other businesses.
It’s the equivalent of a supervisor writing memo to the staff that the department break room should have tea instead of coffee. No one outside the company, or even the department, has to obey it
Can the president unilaterally change the names of anything he wants?
Maybe for things inside his own country. Though the affected local governments may object.
But for bodies of water that contain international waters, and that border other countries? Fuck no he doesn’t.
Sure. There’s no need for anybody else to pander to it though.
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.
The president ordered it. There is no legal mechanism to compel private companies to use the new name.
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
Uuuuuuugh…happens to me alllll the time…
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.
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.
It will be interesting to see what openstreetmap do - they have an “on the ground principle” that says to look at what the local signs say when naming something, but the data is tagged with a load of references to NOAA pages on historical treaties that the US signed (which obviously used the normal name for that area)
Fuck, is he actually trying to null out some treaties?
Pretty sure he’s going after all of them.
It never will happen. We all keep calling it what it is, the gulf of Mexico. Easy.
I thought “we’ll build a wall and have Mexico pay for it” was just shit-talking, too.
Trump has the habit of saying shit like this. His opponents will say “Oh god the cringe, it hurts”. His supporters will say “Oh shit, I didn’t think that we have to actually implement this? This will cause all sorts of expensive problems.”
To be fair, that was just shit talking. He may have started building the wall, but Mexico didn’t pay for it
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.
I mean, in this case, he has the rest of the English-speaking world to stop him with stupid renaming. If everyone just refuses to call it anything other than the Gulf of Mexico, it’s not like he can do anything about it, especially if they’re outside of the US.
I’m waiting to hear what they want to do with New Mexico
Rename it to New America then in 4 years whine about New America trying to steal the light from old America because Democrats
Only after they deport all the new Mexicans
What does Claudia scheinbaum have to say about this
My favorite part is that the soviets beat us to the name
I know this has been said a lot, especially lately, but I think this is the true death knell of satire.
:(
Should rename it the Persian gulf or the Arab gulf and watch as people get even more confused.
With all the other bullshit, I missed this EO being made. Jesus fuck.
Wait, this is an official thing, not a joke? Is it a law thing?..
What???
Executive Orders are more like a corporate memo to the government. It’s not a law passed by congress, but it can direct the government in how to administer existing laws or regulations.
Executive Orders are closer to press releases than they are to law. They can say pretty much anything - whether those things are enforceable or even consistent with reality is up to the courts.
Government employees and institutions are bound to act according to executive orders. They are binding. You’re correct they can be challenged in court. EO need to fit under existing laws. EO are often instructions on how to implement an existing law.
Press releases are not binding and might even be outright lies.
Only binding to the federal government though, states, private organizations, and individuals can wipd their ass with them.
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.
Thanks btw, really informative!
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.
Just because something has a purpose doesn’t mean it has succeeded at it. 👍
This is not about you.
It’s one of the most upvoted posts on Lemmy at the moment. This is getting attention.
Whoever obeys Nazis, I will boycott your platform. Plain and simple.
Did Dan Crenshaw contact the Gulf to ask how it wants to identify itself?
yes, but it asked to be called “The Rainbow Gulf”… and he decided to maybe forget that ever happened.
For people always calling the others “snowflakes” and “easily triggered”, they sure do have a thin skin.
Every accusation
It’s always projection with these people.
Always. Especially the pedo stuff.
Wait until iOS Auto Corrects them typing Gulf of America to Gulf of Mexico but only after they hit send.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you were so sensitive” is my response to these types IRL.
“Facts don’t care about your feelings snowflake.”
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.
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.
Great, now I have to chose between correct geographical names and the reasonable spelling words.
Removed by mod
Don’t count on it, Apple and Google were both at inauguration
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.
Well yeah, you don’t get into his position by not loving money more than anything else. Hell, even the infamous George Soros if you actually look at his philanthropy it’s basically “a more tolerant and open society is better for capital”
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.
I call them hypocrites, but they don’t care.
