Google Maps has apparently shat itself in Brisbane, with the city’s famous, eponymous river now being marked as “Ithaca Creek”.
It all started, apparently, when Brisbane local Ismaan Ameer‘s son noticed the actual Ithaca Creek, in the city’s west, was incorrectly labelled as the Brisbane River. Kind of a big error, ya know?
“So he has been writing to them to get them to update it,” he said on Reddit.
“It looks like they went a bit far and now the Brisbane River has been renamed,” Ameer later told the ABC.
My son accidentally made Google rename Brisbane River…
by in brisbane
Google Maps allows people to report things like incorrect street names, or, *cough* incorrect river names. Once enough reports have been lodged, the company goes ahead and makes the change.
That explains why Ameer’s son had to write to Google more than once for them to do anything.
“He loves maps and reporting errors to Google,” he wrote.
“It has always annoyed him that our creek was labelled as Brisbane River, so he reports that a lot.”
Unfortunately for him/them/us, when Google did do something, they really seem to have stuck their foot in it.
The mistake is still live, if you wanna go see for yourself. And if you’re looking for directions to Ithaca Creek and/or Brisbane River, maybe give the old Goog Maps a miss for the time being.
Finally, for any Brisbanite who say Ithaca doesn’t exist and that it’s an elaborate government hoax, you now have a tiny bit of proof. At least, until they change it back.