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Apple has removed most of the towns and villages in Lebanon from Apple maps (maps.apple.com)

submitted 2 days ago by Quokka@quokk.au to c/world@quokk.au

13 comments fedilink hide all child comments

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.bestiver.se/post/1045122

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[-] TheTechnician27@lemmy.world 84 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

"Removed" implies they were there before, and threads for this have zero evidence showing they were there before (and a lot of people claiming they weren't). This whole thing got started because somebody posted about it on Twitter – and they claimed "South Lebanon" which has apparently metastasized/telephoned into people claiming it was all of Lebanon.

All you show here is a link to Apple Maps, and yeah, they aren't there. This is a thread from 6 years ago claiming Apple's coverage was so egregiously bad that they couldn't plan a route near Beirut. Apple Maps has always been the laughingstock of the major maps services, including even OpenStreetMap whom they (IIRC) sometimes pull data from. No change on Bing or GMaps either, and why the fuck would Apple delete basically all of Lebanon? What mustache-twirling plan did they have to aid Israel's invasion compared to the fucking PR disaster once it was inevitably proven? (And what part does leaving Tyre – which they call "Tyr" for some godforsaken reason – when it's functionally abandoned play in this maniacal scheme?)

If you have evidence that it wasn't like this before, then cool. If not, maybe posting your original "research" to a world news comm isn't justified.

[-] Quokka@quokk.au 18 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

This isn’t my “original” research, and the hacker news comments show cases how the town of Maroun Al-Ras is missing but the garden with the same name still exist. As well as anecdotal evidence of people saying it was there.

Likewise zooming in we can see detailed locations of petrol stations, street names, archaeological sites, and countless businesses.

Whats also concerning is the sudden voting on your comment, each 1-2 minutes apart and starting 3 minutes after you posted. I highly suspect you are manipulating votes. Because that level of activity is uncommon for this community and its comments.

[-] TheTechnician27@lemmy.world 26 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

I don't bot. We can get the Lemmy.World administration involved if you want to confirm that I don't (be a bit fucking weird if I only did it here, yeah?). The fact that you're resorting to calling a pretty normal-seeming pattern of voting "botting" illustrates how little evidence you actually need to fall into conspiratorial nonsense. My only regret is that I have but one downvote to give your bullshit post.

Starting 3 minutes in is extremely normal for Lemmy (for some reason, but that's nevertheless been my experience). What exactly is the significance to you behind "3 minutes"? Did I need to give the "bots" time to warm up or something? Of course the real answer is that there is none and you're just throwing spaghetti at the wall because your argument is paper-thin and full of obvious holes you were too fucking stupid to consider.

[-] Quokka@quokk.au 7 points 2 days ago

You already have been banned from other communities for vote manipulation, and as I said this rapid level of voting activity is not normal for this community. Involving the Lemmy.world admins would not disprove it as VPNs can easily hide any shared IPs. And 1-2 minutes would be a reasonable time frame for switching VPN location, logging into an account, locating this and voting.

All things considered it is highly suspicious.

[-] TheTechnician27@lemmy.world 23 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

You already have been banned from other communities for vote manipulation

I don't know which those are. I was banned over a year ago(?) by this carnivore-diet nutjob because I downvoted the posts in his propaganda communities for spreading provably harmful health disinformation, but that downvoting was expressly limited to my account.

And 1-2 minutes would be a reasonable time frame for switching VPN location, logging into an account, locating this and voting.

Oh, cool! That's something I'd totally do *checks notes* approximately eight times over the course of 15 minutes. I can't prove a negative here, but I like to think I respect myself more than wasting my life injecting bullshit upvotes into my comments. If I somehow decided my life had sunken to the pathetic depths of botting small social media communities, it would be to downvote unsubstantiated nonsense like this, not to inflate arguments that I think can stand on their own merits.

Edit: I'd like to add that my original comment has been up for ~40 minutes now. It's 17:1 (possibly your downvote). While an initial high upvote ratio can psychologically influence people to upvote too, no amount of botting can control other people's downvotes. Surely if I'd botted my comment, it'd be reflected in an influx of downvotes afterward because my "botted" ratio was completely artificial? Even just a few? Did you even check the other comment to see the rate it was being upvoted at as a control? I don't really know why I'm arguing against this unfalsifiable claim, but this whole thing just seems ridiculous to me.

[-] LSNLDN@slrpnk.net 5 points 2 days ago

Just want to jump in and say how sad it is we can’t trust each other online having no way of knowing who is human. And our bastard governments seem to want to, once again, use any opportunity to make money from a problem and sell our digital ID to third parties to resolve the trust issue as if that would do fuck all good

[-] paranoid@lemmy.world 14 points 2 days ago

How exactly do you think voting works on Lemmy?

[-] Iconoclast@feddit.uk 6 points 1 day ago

why the fuck would Apple delete basically all of Lebanon?

It fits the anti-Apple or big tech narrative - truth has been secondary for ages.

[-] Zoomboingding@lemmy.world 5 points 1 day ago

Didn't Apple immediately capitulate on the Gulf of America thing?

[-] 0_o7@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 day ago

They've got no answer to that because it's "Anti-Apple" narrative.

It's a cult.

[-] coalie@piefed.zip 12 points 1 day ago

https://www.wired.me/story/apple-says-southern-lebanon-villages-werent-removed-from-maps-it-never-had-them

Apple says reports claiming certain Lebanese towns and villages were removed from Apple Maps are incorrect, adding that those locations had never been featured on the platform in the first place.

The tech giant added that its newer, more detailed Apple Maps experience is not currently available there, and has not yet launched in all markets globally.

[-] raspberriesareyummy@lemmy.world 17 points 2 days ago

if true, I hope the responsible people end up in life-long psychiatric care in a closed ward, along with the Israeli government.

Fat chance, I know :(

[-] kingofras@lemmy.world 12 points 2 days ago

Did a check on Google Maps too. They certainly have also removed some data, but not on the same ctrl-alt-del level as Apple.

Be warned though. I did one random scroll through Southern Lebanon and it’s revolting. And these satellite images are outdated by months.

https://maps.app.goo.gl/XNmUdaBuUVUA6qau7

this post was submitted on 12 Apr 2026

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