We’ve been fortunate lately to have many news outlets publishing maps with Mapzen tools and services. The most recent was the Washington Post, with a dynamic map exploring Trump’s proposed border wall.

(Map by Philip Bump, Washington Post. Congressional vote data from DailyKos. Wall data by Michael Corey, Reveal News.)

An interesting question came up this weekend on social media: what if Trump uses Mapzen tools to construct the Mexican border wall? How would we respond? Large-scale mapping services would be necessary for a project like this, and many mapping companies focus on the government as an important source of revenue. ESRI, for example, provides mapping services to a wide range of government clients.

If you check Mapzen’s developer terms of service, we prohibit “promotions of hate or incitement of violence.” After his first week in office, we believe Trump’s administration to be in violation of this critical section of our terms, and we would actively block any use of our services by relevant departments of the executive branch. In our view, the current President promotes hate and violence and we refuse to support it. We are proactively banning Trump for terms of service violation, for 120 days (at least). We encourage other mapping providers to take a similar stance and review their government contracts with a critical eye.

Otherwise, we welcome and encourage anyone to use our tools to understand and explain our complex world!