It’s come to this
Google tried to sanewash its map changes:
In a statement posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, Google said it would be complying with the name change as part of a long-standing practice of adhering to official government names. The move follows President Donald Trump’s executive order to rename the body of water and the federal Board on Geographic Names formally changing it Monday.
“We have a longstanding practice of applying name changes when they have been updated in official government sources,” Google said.
But Google made deletions to its Calendar application as well. Among others, Black History Month is gone:
“Some years ago, the Calendar team started manually adding a broader set of cultural moments in a wide number of countries around the world,” the spokesperson said in an email. “We got feedback that some other events and countries were missing — and maintaining hundreds of moments manually and consistently globally wasn’t scalable or sustainable,” the spokesperson added.
“Maintaining hundreds of moments manually and consistently globally wasn’t scalable or sustainable”? In the age of AI? Really?
Here’s the really part:
Google has made numerous changes lately that align with an altered political environment in the U.S. The company recently began scrapping its diversity hiring goals, becoming the latest tech giant to change its approach to hiring and promotions following the election of President Donald Trump. One of Trump’s first acts as president after taking office in January was to sign an executive order ending the government’s DEI programs and putting federal officials overseeing those initiatives on leave.