Many companies use maps that lack Vietnam's sea and islands.

Ninja Van

On May 26, 2023, some social media users discovered that the shipping company Ninja Van was using a map that lacked the Paracel and Spratly Islands of Vietnam on its official website. The map was integrated into Ninja Van's post office address search feature, provided by two companies, Mapbox and OneStreetMap.

Incorrect map of Vietnam's sovereignty on Ninja Van's website before being removed

Ninja Van was founded in 2014, headquartered in Singapore, and has been present and operating in Vietnam since 2016, but it was only recently discovered that it was using a map lacking sovereignty information. One day after the incident was reported by Thanh Nien , Ninja Van quietly removed the offending map from its website and said it was working with its partner to correct the information. However, the company did not issue any apology or other comments regarding its shortcomings in content management when operating in Vietnam.

TCL

TCL is a consumer electronics manufacturer headquartered in Huizhou City (Guangdong Province, China) and its Vietnam market representative office is located in District 5, Ho Chi Minh City. On May 25, 2023, the domestic internet user community was stirred up when an anonymous post (believed to be from a Vietnamese employee of TCL) posted a picture of a map missing the two archipelagos of Hoang Sa and Truong Sa on social media. This person affirmed that the previous map had full information about the two archipelagos but Chinese leaders requested its removal.

On the same day, TCL Vietnam posted a correction on its official fanpage, confirming that the above content was just a "misunderstanding", and attached a photo of a map with the two archipelagos of Hoang Sa and Truong Sa as proof. However, the post was quickly deleted for unknown reasons, and TCL Vietnam did not provide any explanation for the incident.

Many users noticed that the two maps (in the anonymous post and TCL's deleted correction) were identical, so they assumed that the image of the Vietnam map missing two archipelagos was actually taken from the TCL Vietnam office in District 5.

In early April 2023, the ride-hailing service Grab was also discovered to be using a map that lacked information about Vietnam's Hoang Sa and Truong Sa archipelagos. Similar to Ninja Van, Grab uses the open-source map service of OpenStreetMap, so many areas and entities in the East Sea under Vietnam's sovereignty, such as Subi Reef, Vành Khăn Reef, and Châu Viên Reef, are shown in Chinese and English according to the Chinese name. On OpenStreetMap, the Hoang Sa archipelago is annotated under the name "Sansha" written in Chinese characters.

Grab fined 60 million VND for using map containing false information about Vietnam's sovereignty

The company later publicly apologized and pledged to control more strictly in the future. With the above violation, the Department of Cyber ​​Security and High-Tech Crime Prevention ( Ministry of Public Security ) and the Inspectorate of the Department of Information and Communications of Ho Chi Minh City decided to impose an administrative fine of 60 million VND according to the provisions of Point b, Clause 7, Article 102 of Decree No. 15/2020/ND-CP for the act of "providing information and images that violate national sovereignty; distorting historical facts, denying revolutionary achievements; insulting the nation, celebrities, and national heroes without reaching the level of criminal prosecution".

Yody is a fashion brand founded by Vietnamese people, but it also made the mistake of using a map of Vietnam that lacked the Hoang Sa and Truong Sa archipelagos. Specifically, in a media campaign to celebrate its 9th anniversary, Yody's staff used an image of an incomplete map of Vietnam's sovereignty to appear in a promotional video posted on dozens of Facebook fan pages managed by this unit.

After discovering the problem, Yody sent a statement apologizing for the violation, admitting the shortcomings and reviewing and removing all related content. The authorities fined Yody 15 million VND for the above violation.

Apple

Apple provides services globally, including in Vietnam. At the end of 2022, Vietnamese users reported that the Maps application developed and provided by the company on devices running Apple's operating system was missing the Hoang Sa and Truong Sa archipelagos. However, the unusual disappearance of the two archipelagos belonging to Vietnam on Apple maps was discovered by users around mid-2021 after updating the iOS platform.

As of December 6, 2022, the Department of Radio, Television and Electronic Information (Ministry of Information and Communications) said that the unit had received feedback from Apple regarding the request to add the two archipelagos of Hoang Sa and Truong Sa under Vietnam's sovereignty to the map application (Maps). The leader of the management agency said that Apple acknowledged the error and corrected it according to the Department's request.

In fact, Apple has added a map showing the names of the two archipelagos upon request, but it is only available with device settings in the Vietnam region. For other countries and territories, Apple Maps remains unchanged and leaves the names of these archipelagos blank.

Source link: https://thanhnien.vn/nhieu-cong-ty-dung-ban-do-thieu-bien-dao-viet-nam-185230529083504628.htm