A social media post, accompanied by a screenshot of Google Maps, alleges that Google has removed Palestine from its maps. The viral screenshot of the map does not display the label for Palestine (here & here). This article is a fact-check of the claim made in the post.
Claim: Google has removed Palestine from its maps.
Fact: Google has repeatedly clarified in response to these allegations that it has not made any changes to the borders or territories in the area and has never used a label for Palestine on Google Maps. Google explained that, due to the lack of a unified agreement among global authorities regarding the territorial boundaries of Palestine, they are unable to accurately outline and tag its borders on Google Maps. Hence, the claim made in the post is MISLEADING.
Google does not display a label for Palestine on its maps. A search on Google Maps shows labels for the West Bank and Gaza Strip, separated by dotted lines, but there is no label for Palestine. However, this is not a recent development. There has never been a Palestine label on Google Maps. A Google search with relevant keywords revealed multiple old news reports about this same claim appearing in the news numerous times.
According to these reports, Google has repeatedly clarified in response to these allegations that it has not made any changes to borders or territories in the area and has never used a label for Palestine on Google Maps (here, here & here). Google further explained that, due to the lack of a unified agreement among global authorities regarding the territorial boundaries of Palestine, they are unable to outline and tag its borders on Google Maps accurately.
Google spokesperson clarified in 2014 that Google tries to “remain neutral on issues of disputed regions and borders and make every effort to objectively display the dispute in our maps using a dashed gray borderline. In countries where we have local versions of Google Maps, we follow local legislation when displaying names and borders.”
The viewpoint mentioned above is also highlighted in the official Google Maps support section. This confirms that Google did not remove the label for Palestine from its maps, as it had never labelled it in the first place. It’s important to note that while the United Nations considers Palestine a single-occupied entity, the official borders remain undetermined.
To sum up, Google did not remove Palestine from its maps; it has never labelled Palestine before.