From what I remember, it's less of an "intense debate" over the political issues themselves, and more "how do we define and serve a world map in a non-political way, in areas of the world where the map itself is political" like Kashmir, Israel/Palestine, and a bunch of other places that most people who don't live there haven't heard of.

> areas of the world where the map itself is political

That would be everywhere. Even the most boring border in the world is political: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_areas_disputed_by_Ca...

> Even the most boring border in the world

US-Canadian border is definitely one of the more intense borders I crossed. And some of the horror stories I heard (e.g. Peter Watts) sound pretty bad. It might be the most boring US border though.

Really boring borders can be found in EU/Schengen where you drive by a sign announcing a different country and that's it. There are even more boring (and interesting at the same time) borders: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baarle-Nassau#/media/File:Baar...

Right, hence the team of lawyers and policy people that Google (and presumably Microsoft, Apple, and anyone else who runs a mapping product) pay to figure out how to craft a policy that at least APPEARS non-political.

I'm sure that neutrality is the ideal, and even that the ideal is usually realized. That said, I happen to know how things look inside FB's ME content moderation team^. The israel-palestine conflict is passion provoking, all over the world, in ways that Azerbaijan-Armenia, N. Cyprus or Crimea are not. I suspect that's the case on the maps team too.

That said, content moderation tends to employ people who are experts in the region, with academic backgrounds in history, politics and such. They're likely coming in with strong opinions. Cartography may different.

^Safety, or whatever name they use internally.

There is, but it's like that for lots of places. There are plenty of conflicting border claims in the world. The azerbaijan-armenia was a recent hot button, for example. Crimea probably will be, going forward.

The Israel-Palestine conflict tends to be unique mostly in the passion it draws, inside google maps teams, FB's moderation teams and nearly anywhere else. Any specific issue likely has coroleries elsewhere.