Snapchat’s map was vandalized to label New York City as ‘Jewtropolis’

Snapchat

• Snapchat users discovered on Thursday morning that the
  app’s map labeled New York City as ‘Jewtropolis’.
• The cause was the vandalism of the mapping software
  from Mapbox, a third-party company that supplies mapping
  information to Snapchat, StreetEasy and Citi Bike.
• The change went unnoticed by Mapbox, and was visible
  for a few hours Thursday morning until being fixed around 9 AM
  ET. 
• Mapbox confirmed that it was an act of human vandalism,
  but it still isn’t sure how the change was able to slip through
  the cracks unnoticed.

Snapchat users took to social media to post screenshots showing
the Snap Map labeling New York City as “Jewtropolis” early
Thursday morning.

The cause? It turns out that the mapping software company Mapbox,
used by Snapchat, the Weather Channel, StreetEasy, Citi Bike, and
more, was vandalized to display the anti-Semitic moniker in place
of New York City.

The company said the issue was resolved shortly before 9 AM ET.

Mapbox is utilized by a variety of developers, and used by over
400 million people per month, but not all services that rely on
Mapbox’s data were affected by the vandalism. Other companies
like Vice and Vox that use Mapbox did not seem to be affected,

The Verge reported. 

In a statement
to Tech Crunch, Mapbox CEO and founder Eric
Gundersen said Mapbox uses humans and AI to check for vandalism,
but the company is still looking into how this particular act of
vandalism slipped through the cracks. Mapbox did not respond
to a request for comment from Business Insider. 

“This is now 100 percent fixed and should have never
happened. It’s disgusting,” Gundersen told Tech Crunch. “We’re
constantly scanning for this, and it’s an error on our part [to
have missed it].”