createPoliticsResponse : The political computation of state borders in Yandex Maps Article - Janvier 2026

<div><p>This article exposes how a large-scale tech platform, Yandex, resolves geopolitical conflicts through its digital cartography service, Yandex Maps. Faced with a multiplicity of political users, Yandex Maps chooses to display national borders in multiple ways, depending on the preference of the company, and the expectation of the user requesting a map. In order to uncover these algorithmic processes, we first propose a methodological approach based on a spatial understanding of source code, which we then apply in two parts : first showing how the geographical world is assembled by Yandex Maps backend processes, before highlighting how the client/server web architecture enables the individualized delivery of adequate border display to particular users.</p></div>