On July 16, popular Instagram user @astagfirolah shared a post with “breaking news” that Google Maps and Apple Maps had officially removed Palestine from their maps. It received over a million likes and prompted a wave of social media outrage. The post was later edited to say that it was false news, and that Palestine was never actually on these maps.

This is not the first time this hoax spreads. In 2016, the same news circulated to no factual evidence. Still, the hoax triggered over 1 million signatures to an online petition entitled “Google: Put Palestine On Your Maps!”, and a Facebook group exists with the same name. The petition’s author Zak Martin explained that the issue is of great importance as Google Maps are regarded as definitive by people worldwide, including journalists, students and researchers.

“Whether intentionally or otherwise, Google is making itself complicit in the Israeli government’s ethnic cleansing of Palestine,” Martin said in the petition.

He called on Google to recognize Palestine in Google Maps, and to clearly designate and identify the Palestinian territories illegally occupied by Israel