Last week, I made a post on my LinkedIn page about the UPOL's Online International Spring School on Visualization. Today, I want to dive deeper into the experience — what I learnt, and the big issue that may not go away: trust in maps.
Proud to have earned my certificate in this rigorous program (see below)—but the real value was in the uncomfortable truths it revealed about misinformation.
On the first day, subject matter experts spent hours discussing trust in cartography, and it made me reflect deeply on my work as a GIS professional. I’ve always been aware of how geospatial data can be weaponized to spread misinformation at scale—a concern that guides my solutions, especially when working with civil servants in developing countries. I’ve encountered what I call "Spatial Criminals": people who fabricate coordinates from their homes, submitting false field reports. While the immediate impact may be limited to their organizations, the ripple effects can still be damaging.
But the Spring School opened my eyes to something bigger: maps and visualizations are now tools for mass misinformation, wielded by individuals, organizations, and even governments to push biased narratives. Before, I assumed proper sourcing and citations were enough—just like in academic work. But as Gabriela Godišková highlighted in her session, even credible data can be distorted through axis manipulation, skewed proportions, or selective truncation. For instance, a politician might show a GDP dip from January to June while omitting the rebound from July to December. The data isn’t false, but the story is incomplete.
This realization hit hard. In the early days of digital visualization, we evangelized its potential—news agencies adopted GIS, weather stations improved their charts, and data became more accessible. But now, we’re grappling with the ethics of its use. The worst part? Too few people are paying attention. With only a small group attending the Spring School, I worry about how we’ll combat this growing problem.
Moving forward, I’ll be scrutinizing every map, chart, and graph with even greater care. But the bigger questions remain: How do we see through the lies? How do we rebuild trust in maps amid this era of misinformation?
I’d love to hear your thoughts—what solutions do you see? Let’s discuss in the comments.
Author
Bamidele Clement Oke
Esri Certified GIS Analyst/Developer
Esri Certified GIS Analyst with extensive experience in both government and private sectors, providing innovative geospatial solutions. Currently, I'm pursuing a double master's degree with a focus on Geovisualization and Geocommunication. When I'm not making maps, I'm either designing apps and sites like this one, playing with my son, doing some DIY stuff, or eating something made with beans. Need geospatial insights or just want to chat about GIS? I'm your map whisperer!
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Comments (2)
Clear thoughts and profound insight.
Replies (1)
Thank you!
This is an Interesting post and I think its not really being looked into. And it got me thinking about how sometimes things on maps can be a bit misleading. An historical deal with Namibia's Caprivi Strip is a typical example. You can read about it here (https://www.cntraveler.com/stories/2013-03-04/caprivi-strip-namibia-zimbabwe-maphead-ken-jennings), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LAHAXfSrXmo. But just to summarize, back in 1890, Germany wanted a shortcut from their part of Africa (now Namibia) to their other stuff over on the east coast. Their brilliant plan? Grab a bit of land that touched the Zambezi River, 'cause they figured they could just boat on down. But here's the funny part: they totally forgot about Victoria Falls! Like, the world's biggest waterfall was just chilling there, making the river completely useless for boats. Meanwhile, the British were totally in on the joke. Germany offered them Zanzibar (a pretty sweet island) and some other stuff in exchange for this skinny strip. The Brits knew the land was useless to Germany but happily took the deal anyway. - So, this whole weird panhandle shape in Namibia exists just because the Germans kinda messed up their geography. Bismarck, the guy before the German chancellor who made the deal, even said they traded their "trousers for a button" because it was such a bad trade. It just goes to show you, even way back then, maps and geographical knowledge could lead to some pretty surprising and, in this case, kind of hilarious outcomes. Definitely makes you think about TRUSTING what you see on a map. They say data don't lie, but it now depends on what data format we talking about... right? or who is processing/analyzing it? I think an independent map standardization committee might need to be established to review authoritative maps before they are published to curb this.
Replies (1)
Thanks for sharing this Benedict, the Caprivi Strip story is such a wild example of how maps can mislead when context is missing. You're right: data alone isn’t enough; how it's interpreted matters just as much.