Google Maps was hit by a peculiar bug that somehow changed Google’s icons, mainly for hotels in Europe and other locations with the swastika.
According to reports, some of the users in Europe, Puerto Rico along with other parts of the world who spotted the bug passed the information on to the authorities.
The Google app that has “beds” as images for hotels was hit by a bug that transformed the icon into that of the swastika.
Google Maps responded by saying that the symbol is a Buddhist symbol that represents a place of worship and not “swastika” in reality. They also informed that they are working to fix the bugs.
Also, one of the users who was confused uninstalled and reinstalled the app again and discovered that the situation returned to normal.
Awkward users in other parts of the world from Europe also encountered this strange issue and posted various tweets to express their impression of the topic. One of the users from the capital of Ireland referred to the issue by sending some tweets talking about a “bed-bug”.
The “swastika”, after Hitler’s terror dictatorship, became associated with Nazi sentiment, but long before that, the Buddhist symbol meant power and prosperity for thousands of years.
The reasoning behind the whole error situation could be the fact that Google Maps has a feature that allows users to see locations with “points of interest”.
Each “point of interest” has its own symbol that corresponds to it, such as a «fork and knife» for restaurants and a «shopping bag» for shopping centers.
However, as developments progressed, it was discovered that this illustration was always intended to represent Buddhist temples, especially in places where it is still considered a «religious symbol».
Despite the aforementioned fact, Google has determined that the sudden appearance of the swastika symbol or Buddhist symbol is an accident and will be removed from Maps.
