The pins are found, placed and checked by software we built, with people reviewing what it can't settle. Each pin starts from a public source: the original video and the creator's own posts, news reports, court and police records, Wikipedia, the National Park Service. The coordinate comes from that source, never from a guess, and the pipeline refuses any coordinate that lands more than a few miles from where the record says the place is.

The short account on each pin is written from those sources, in our own words. An automated check reads every pin twice a day and flags anything it can't confirm for a person to look at.

Readers suggest places too. A suggestion goes through the same checks before it's placed. When the person in the video has said where it was, we say so.

Coordinates run to four decimal places, about 30 feet. If we wrote up how we found a place, the write-up is on the pin's page, in the same words as the Instagram post.

What Raw States is

A map of the United States with a pin at the exact spot where something happened: a viral video, a news story, a historic site, a landmark, a birthplace, a ghost town. Every pin has a short account and its own page at rawstates.com/p/<pin>. The map is free, no account needed. A free account lets you reveal three of the restricted places, here or abroad. All of them are $6.99 a month. The rest is on the how to use page.

Who runs it

Canary Street LLC, a Florida company, at 7901 4th St N, STE 300, St Petersburg, Florida 33702. Questions go to hello@rawstates.com; anything about your data goes to privacy@rawstates.com. Hours and a form are on the contact page.

Corrections and removals

If a pin is in the wrong place, out of date or just wrong, tell us from the suggestion box on the map or by email. We check it the way we check a new pin and fix what's wrong. If you're named in a pin and want it changed or taken down, write to hello@rawstates.com. Event organizers can claim their event's page to confirm its details.