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Well there is a very contentious mayoral election going on in LA right now, and the fires are a central topic. Concealing the fire damage could be used to infl

Well there is a very contentious mayoral election going on in LA right now, and the fires are a central topic. Concealing the fire damage could be used to influence or thwart campaign messaging. Not that Google has been caught doing anything political before...

brookst 5mo ago
Is there any evidence of such an elaborate scheme? Are voters looking on Google Maps to validate claims about the fires, in some kind of mass trend that produces evidence? Because it really sounds like a conspiracy theory draped over a pretty tangential fact. But I’d love to be wrong if there is evidence (“Google did something totally different but also bad” is not evidence).
- trunkiedozer 5mo ago
  [flagged]
  - skobes 5mo ago
    The map tile backend is in the middle of a multi year effort to migrate from the Flippity Service to the Floopity Service. The FlippityFlooper was believed to have finished the necessary format conversions for all map tiles in the US and Canada but 5% of the data sources were missed due to a bug that was discovered after the creator of FlippityFlooper had been promoted and changed teams, so those Floopity tiles are filled in from an older source. A junior engineer vibe-coded a stopgap fallback called FloopityFlipper that redirects to legacy Flippity Service when Floopity staleness is detected, but that redirect broke three months later due to a change in an injected dependency's experiment configuration. A bug was auto-filed and marked P2 by an overworked product manager who slightly misunderstood the scope, but the FloopityFlipper engineer will probably have a look once they are back from paternity leave. I made all of that up but it's more plausible than conspiracy theories.
    - trunkiedozer 5mo ago
      [dead]
palmotea 5mo ago
> Well there is a very contentious mayoral election going on in LA right now, and the fires are a central topic. > Concealing the fire damage could be used to influence or thwart campaign messaging. I know nothing about that election, but what would be Google's angle in wanting to influence it?
- buckle8017 5mo ago
  Google likely doesn't have an angle, but the person who decided to make this change maybe does.
- OkayPhysicist 5mo ago
  Google has two campuses in LA. They have at least some vested interest in local politics being friendly to them.
redsocksfan45 5mo ago
[dead]
selectodude 5mo ago
There’s plenty of evidence of the ineptitude and corruption of the Los Angeles government located in the actual city. I don’t think anybody in LA is hinging a vote on the rebuilding process in Alta Dena.
neuronexmachina 5mo ago
Altadena is part of unincorporated LA County, they don't vote in the City of Los Angeles elections.
- kjkjadksj 5mo ago
  Palisades fire damage has also been removed from the mapping.
  - ikr678 5mo ago
    Must only be for US users. When I look at it from Australia the Palisades damage is still there. Altadena also shows mostly vacant and cleared lots.

brookst 5mo ago

Is there any evidence of such an elaborate scheme? Are voters looking on Google Maps to validate claims about the fires, in some kind of mass trend that produces evidence? Because it really sounds like a conspiracy theory draped over a pretty tangential fact. But I’d love to be wrong if there is evidence (“Google did something totally different but also bad” is not evidence).

trunkiedozer 5mo ago
[flagged]
- skobes 5mo ago
  The map tile backend is in the middle of a multi year effort to migrate from the Flippity Service to the Floopity Service. The FlippityFlooper was believed to have finished the necessary format conversions for all map tiles in the US and Canada but 5% of the data sources were missed due to a bug that was discovered after the creator of FlippityFlooper had been promoted and changed teams, so those Floopity tiles are filled in from an older source. A junior engineer vibe-coded a stopgap fallback called FloopityFlipper that redirects to legacy Flippity Service when Floopity staleness is detected, but that redirect broke three months later due to a change in an injected dependency's experiment configuration. A bug was auto-filed and marked P2 by an overworked product manager who slightly misunderstood the scope, but the FloopityFlipper engineer will probably have a look once they are back from paternity leave. I made all of that up but it's more plausible than conspiracy theories.
  - trunkiedozer 5mo ago
    [dead]

palmotea 5mo ago

> Well there is a very contentious mayoral election going on in LA right now, and the fires are a central topic. > Concealing the fire damage could be used to influence or thwart campaign messaging. I know nothing about that election, but what would be Google's angle in wanting to influence it?

buckle8017 5mo ago
Google likely doesn't have an angle, but the person who decided to make this change maybe does.
OkayPhysicist 5mo ago
Google has two campuses in LA. They have at least some vested interest in local politics being friendly to them.

redsocksfan45 5mo ago

[dead]

selectodude 5mo ago

There’s plenty of evidence of the ineptitude and corruption of the Los Angeles government located in the actual city. I don’t think anybody in LA is hinging a vote on the rebuilding process in Alta Dena.

neuronexmachina 5mo ago

Altadena is part of unincorporated LA County, they don't vote in the City of Los Angeles elections.

kjkjadksj 5mo ago
Palisades fire damage has also been removed from the mapping.
- ikr678 5mo ago
  Must only be for US users. When I look at it from Australia the Palisades damage is still there. Altadena also shows mostly vacant and cleared lots.