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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.

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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.

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

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