Have you heard that Google removed Palestine from Google Maps on 25 July 2016?
At first blush (warning, spoiler to this story coming):
Searching for Israel:
Searching for Palestine:
Do you see a label for Palestine? Despite the side border in Google Maps reporting:
The State of Palestine, also known simply as Palestine, is a de jure sovereign state in the Middle East that is recognized by 136 UN members and since 2012 has a status of a non-member observer state…
Searching further I found more discussions about Google removing Palestine from Google Maps, but with conflicting dates.
That sent me to the Internet Archive WayBack Machine where I found Google Maps for Israel as follows:
2010:
2012:
2014:
Some observations:
West Bank appears in 2010 but not thereafter.
Gaza is labeled if you search for Palestine but unlabeled if you search for Israel (first two images).
Curious, is there another state, recognized by 136 UN members that does not appear by name in Google Maps?
The coverage of Google Maps gets spotty the further back you go in the Internet Archive. Unfortunate because it is likely the only trusted witness to ever changing digital content.
On the whole, reports of Google deleting Palestine from Google Maps are false. Google never identified Palestine at all.
That’s not a defense to Google’s failure to identify Palestine but an attempt to illustrate Google’s historical failure to identify Palestine.