Users of some services saw New York relabelled in a hack this week as digital maps become the latest battleground for abuse

On Thursday morning, some users of the maps functionality on Snapchat were shocked to see New York labelled “Jewtropolis”. Users of the bike-rental scheme Citi Bike, the real estate website StreetEasy and the Weather Channel website saw the same thing.

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No one at any of those companies appears to be responsible. Instead the blame lies with Mapbox, a third-party company that provides maps for online brands. Mapbox relies partly on user-provided data, and while there are supposed to be checks in place to prevent abuse of the system, it seems a prankster had managed to get through them and give New York a new antisemitic moniker, albeit one that was changed within an hour once moderators had spotted it.

In a statement, Snap, the parent company of Snapchat, said the defacement was “deeply offensive”. Mapbox called it “malicious hate speech” and a “disgusting attack” and said they were reviewing how it could have happened. Yet this is far from the first shot to be fired in the war of the maps apps.

You could be forgiven for thinking that online maps are one of the least controversial parts of the internet. Yes, social media may be rife with abuse, bullying and fake news, but apps like Google Maps and Waze appear to be objective, useful services.

On the internet, though, things are never be that simple. Although services like Google and Mapbox use a wide range of data sources including Ordnance Survey maps, information from federal and local governments and location data, they also rely in part on submissions from the public – and that’s where trouble can begin brewing.

Some of these hacks are relatively harmless. After some senators suggested renaming the Russell Office Building in the Senate after John McCain earlier this week, an enthusiastic well-wisher managed to rename the building on Google Maps before any official decision had been made, changing the block to the “McCain Senate Office Building”. Google Maps has since reversed the change.

But most of the hacks are a lot more pernicious. During Barack Obama’s presidency, for example, there were times when searching for the racist terms “nigger house” or “nigger king”, when focused on Washington DC, would immediately show you information for the White House.

People also hack maps features as a means of protest. Serbian Crown, a Washington DC restaurant which served controversial meats including lion and alligator, suddenly found one weekend that business had dropped off, with the owner estimating a 75% reduction in customers. This continued for months, and the restaurant had to lay off staff and make cutbacks. Eventually they realised that their opening hours had been changed on Google, so it appeared the restaurant was closed on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. By the time they were able to get it changed it was too late and the restaurant was forced to close. The owner later tried unsuccessfully to sue Google.

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There are thousands of other fake businesses, faulty information and jokes on maps services, some a form of political protest, but most are just personal in-jokes. But because the algorithm Google and others use to populate maps are a mystery, it’s often difficult to get things changed when mistakes are spotted.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest An area in Pakistan showed this unusual pattern of woodland on Google Maps Photograph: Google Maps

On at least one occasion, though, Google was extremely quick to make changes. In 2015, an area of woodland in Pakistan briefly displayed the logo of Google’s Android software urinating on the Apple logo. Once discovered, Google decided not to keep the design as an emblem of their market dominance in the maps arena, and the image was quickly removed.