Comment by idlewords | Hacker News Reader

Comment by idlewords | Hacker News Reader

This move comes after Apple re-instated the app into the app store under public pressure. This comes after Apple told Senator Howley that the decision to block the app had been a mistake:

https://twitter.com/HawleyMO/status/1180214941867036672

It's important for the discussion that this app does not violate any local laws in Hong Kong. It is a safety tool. You can check out the web version here (click icons and paste text into Google translate if you can't read Chinese) https://hkmap.live/

In a nutshell, it shows where police are (puppy icons), police vehicles, concentrations of demonstrators (construction worker icon), sightings of the special riot squad called the raptors (dinosaur icon), and places where demonstrators can find safe transport (house icon).

There's a lot of rumor flying around Hong Kong that selective website blocking will be the next emergency measure after the mask ban, so it's very important to have a backup version of this site on the app store (and Google store) in addition to the web version.

Ah, so the app is fully p2p? I was wondering what (apart from principle) made having it at all important but in that case it makes sense.

Using a dog icon for the police isn’t exactly a great look if you’re trying to be neutral. It’s roughly equivalent to using a pig to represent the police in the US. I don’t see why they couldn’t have just used one of the standard emoji for police there - it’d be a lot less likely to offend.

It's a cute puppy icon, and nobody is trying to be neutral.

As a counterpoint, I grew up with McGruff the Crime Dog, which is still used today:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McGruff_the_Crime_Dog

Also worth noting that K9 Units are heavily utilized by police

https://www.police.gov.hk/ppp_en/11_useful_info/pdu/index.ht...

There is a historical precedent of that association.

“It’s totally ok, dogs are police too” doesn’t quite work in a culture where dogs are often invoked as insult words. There’s a different cultural context here that you need to be aware of. As I said, the American equivalent would probably be to use a little pig emoji for a police officer, which I doubt would go over well here.

It’s not by a stretch the most controversial aspect of the app, but it doesn’t really help their case much.

The policeman emoji also exists for a reason.

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