A map shrinks the world onto a small flat page, so it has to leave things out, simplify shapes, and bend distances. The distortion is not a flaw to be fixed but the price of having a readable map at all. These lies are approximate truths, still worth trusting and using.
Every choice a mapmaker makes, whether made on purpose or without thinking, picks one version of a place out of many that could have been drawn. No map is neutral; each is a persuasive story about the place it shows.
Laying a round earth onto a flat sheet cannot keep sizes, shapes, and distances all correct at once. Choosing a projection is a technical decision that quietly changes how big, near, or important places look.
Maps that shade regions by a number can make the same data tell different stories, depending on how values are grouped into bands and which colors are used. Because the eye trusts what it sees, these choices about symbols can mislead as surely as false data.
Advertisers, developers, governments, and armies shape maps to serve their goals, for example to make a place look close and convenient, or to make a threat look large. Knowing that maps are easy-to-manipulate models of reality is the best defense against being misled by them.