Data vandal changes name of New York City to “Jewtropolis” across multiple apps [Updated]

Enlarge / Multiple applications, including Zillow, Snapchat, and Citibike, displayed vandalized map data to users identifying New York City as "Jewtropolis." (credit: Snapchat, Zillow, Citibikes)

Late yesterday, users of Snapchat and a number of other applications began to report that the label on in-application maps for New York City had been changed to "Jewtropolis." That change in data from the mapping developer kit company MapBox had been pulled in from OpenStreetMap-a community-driven mapping project also used by Wikimedia.

Whatever mapping service that Snapchat, CitiBike, StreetEasy, (perhaps others) use - it seems - is showing New York City as "Jewtropolis" this morning. pic.twitter.com/nsVe8goLyo

- Micah Grimes (@MicahGrimes) August 30, 2018

The same map data made its way to the real estate application Zillow:

Couldn't find a way to report directly to @streeteasy or @zillow or @openstreetmap so here's a screen shot of a condo located in "Jewtropolis". Assuming they've been hacked. Might want to get on that and fix it. #Antisemitic @ADL_National pic.twitter.com/Z36GdrzLo9

- Brian P. Klein (@brianpklein) August 30, 2018

OpenStreetMap has frequently had to deal with data vandalism, rolling back malicious changes to map data by trolls. In one case in 2010, someone created a fictional town of "West Harrisburg" and imported GPS traces for nonexistent streets over what was actually forest and farmland. One vandal with the username MedwedianPresident was recently blocked after committing a series of changes to roadway names and other map details in New York, including changing the name of the Manhattan Bridge to "Ku Klux Klan Highway," changing the name of Franklin Delano Roosevelt Drive to "Zionist Cannibal Drive," and renaming the Hugh Carey Tunnel (formerly the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel) to "Adolph Hitler Memorial Tunnel," among other things.

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