In response to claims that its Google Maps was being used to coordinate Russian military activities in Ukraine, Google on Tuesday began removing tags added by users in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. A Google spokesperson told BuzzFeed News that the company is removing new content, such as location tags, “out of an abundance of caution.”
Across social media platforms on Tuesday, people accused Google Maps of hosting content allegedly used in airstrikes on cities including Kyiv and Kharkov.
Twitter user Oleksandr Balatskyi told BuzzFeed News in a private message, “The tags in Google Maps were created on February 28 and people noticed that they matched the places where the missile hit today.”
The tags or user-generated Pushpins started appearing yesterday with the titles “ФЕРМЕРСЬКЕ ГОСПОДАРСТВО” or “farm” in Ukrainian, and “СІЛЬСКЕ ГОСПОДАРСТВО” or “agriculture” in Ukrainian.
BuzzFeed News could not independently verify the existence of specific pins, or the Russian military’s claims that they were added to Google Maps. Dozens of Twitter users shared the same set of screenshots showing Kyiv pins marked “ФЕРМЕРСЬКЕ ГОСПОДАРСТВО,” but it’s unclear when or by whom they were created.
After investigating the claims, Google said some of the edits mentioning the farm were made more than a year ago. However, the company said it was removing edits made to the region’s map since Feb. 24 and would suspend new edits.
“Out of an abundance of caution, we are removing user contributions such as photos, videos, comments and commercial information from Google Maps in Ukraine, Russia, and Belarus, as well as all user-submitted places since the intrusion began, and temporarily block them,” a Google spokesperson said. New editor.”
Ukrainian-language user accounts on Twitter and Telegram urged people to report suspicious location tags to Google Maps. A Google Maps request for help posted on Tuesday asked the company to “restrict the creation of tags within Ukraine until the end of the war with Russia.” The request was later shared on the Ukrainian parliament’s Telegram channel.
In the days following the intrusion, Google turned off certain features of its Maps app, including real-time traffic information and data about busy places, in an effort to protect the safety of Ukrainians after communicating with local authorities.
On Friday, Ukrainian news outlet Kyiv Independent said on Twitter that Kyiv city administrators warned citizens to “check and cover any markings on the roofs of their buildings” that may have been drawn to guide Russian bombers. And, some Ukrainian citizens seem to believe that digital markers could also be used against them.
Silicon Valley companies have been under intense pressure to safeguard their services from misuse since Russia launched its military campaign last week. Over the weekend, Facebook and Twitter said they had taken down two disinformation campaigns pushing an anti-Ukraine agenda.
One campaign used artificial intelligence to create fake accounts, posing as bloggers to spread disinformation. On Monday, Google-owned YouTube said it had removed a series of channels linked to one of the campaigns. On Tuesday, Apple announced that it had stopped sales of all products and restricted the use of Apple Pay in Russia while disabling the traffic and live events features of Apple Maps in Ukraine.
YouTube, Facebook and TikTok have also banned Russian state-backed media outlets RT and Sputnik from posting on their platforms in Europe, and Apple has also removed them from the App Store outside Russia.