Not too long ago Google’s Map Maker tool was digitally vandalized, someone took advantage of a security loop and posted an image of an Android bot peeing on the Apple logo, this obviously led to many heated discussions and ultimately resulted in Google freezing the tool indefinitely. Today Google Map Maker has gone live again albeit in select countries.
Following the debacle Google froze the program and also suspended auto-approved edits, all of this was done so that Google could come up with a much better moderation system.
Seems like one is in place now because Map Maker is gradually going live in various countries across the globe. Users in Bangladesh, Brazil, Canada, India, the Philippines and Ukraine can now use Map Maker once again for edits.
Google figures that by increasing its reliance on the community it can reduce the chances of a similar event happening again in the future, so this time around it has appointed “regional leads” to check the submissions before they’re approved to go live.
Even though regional leads have the power to moderate edits will also be reviewed by Google’s automated moderation system while a small fraction of edits will be personally reviewed by Google operators.
The company promises that Map Maker will open up in more countries over the coming weeks.
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