A post from the Twitter account @ArmedForcesUkr on April 18 caused a commotion, because the post stated that Google Maps had opened detailed photos of what was said to be the location and important Russian military facilities. The Twitter account claims that previously the photos were 'blurred' by Google because they were part of a sensitive area.
In the @ArmedForcesUkr account post, several satellite photos are shown which are said to be the basis of the intercontinental ballistic missile launcher system, military ports to secret air bases, and all of them are said to have a resolution of 0.5 meters per pixels. Not long after, the Tweet from @ArmedForcesUkr has provoked a reaction by reaching 2,348 retweets and 233 quote tweets. Even the post has been quoted by major media such as The Moscow Times.
Many netizens think that Russian military facilities can now be 'targeted' easily because the coordinates are known. However, are the claims from the @ArmedForcesUkr account true?
Quoted from TheVerge.com (18/4/2022), Google actually denied the report from @ArmedForcesUkr. Google assumes that before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the photos were not obscured and could be seen clearly by the public.
It's not uncommon for Google to blur photos of potentially sensitive areas, including military locations. For example, Google Maps renders the image pixels blurry at the 705 airbase of the French Air Force. However, there are many other military installations that are publicly viewable, meaning Google Maps lets you view equally detailed satellite imagery of US Nellis Air Force Base and even the famous Area 51.
In Indonesia, for example, the details of the Ujung Pier in Surabaya, the largest Navy base in the Indonesian Navy, can be seen clearly via Google Maps.
However, some locations at Iswahjudi Air Base, such as the aircraft parking area, appear to be obscured by Google Maps. Or it could be that Google does not blur satellite photos, but by lowering the image resolution of the photo in areas that are considered sensitive.
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