faking earth's geological history

for some reason the history of the world - geologically speaking - has steadily been 'altered' since at least 1996; in american publications such has national geographic and reader's digest reference books. diagrams show the movement of the tecktonic or continental plates as being northwards from the south pole instead of what is plainly measured now as mostly east-west movement. when did this start happening? why lie about geolological history?