Neither the UN nor any other state save for Turkey recognizes the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, and yet, users in Turkey see it demarcated on their Google Maps. As a result, the way Google draws borders or names places on its map is often at odds with those recognized by the international community or United Nations. Google Maps reflects the views of one private company that has a duty to maximize shareholder value. However, the product has no imprimatur of authority. This is partly due to Google’s role in our lives as a purveyor of fact, combined with the sense that digital mapping is scientific, objective, and unbiased, as well as the reality that many governments have outsourced data management functions to private companies. With such immense market power, many users think Google provides them with the map of the world. Google Maps is nearly ubiquitous with 80% market share in digital mapping.

And, of course, Google dominates the field of cartography, which, from the 17th to the mid-20th Century, was often a direct extension of sovereign power. Tech companies’ executive ranks are filled with former high-powered government officials, Supreme Court-like oversight boards impose First Amendment obligations on these private entities, they send “ambassadors” to build relationships with foreign governments. No longer is the relationship of corporations to states as Thomas Hobbes famously described in Leviathan, as “lesser commonwealths in the bowels of a greater, like worms in the entrails of a natural man.” Today, supranational technology and social media companies increasingly take on government-like functions of their own accord and wade into activities we typically associate with the domain of sovereign states.

Ukraine war map 2020