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Comment by threeseed | Hacker News Reader

This app specifically lists where the police are. That is its primary purpose.

Comparing it to Facebook or Snapchat makes absolutely no sense.

Dude, in HK the police raise are legally obliged to raise flags to warn the public of things such as firing tear gas, dispersing crowds, illegal assembly etc. They will also post on Twitter to notify the public where and when they will disperse the public. The HK police force wants the public to know where they are, so in the context of HK, banning this app is kind of ridiculous.

Considering the brutality of the HK police force in recent months, I would argue that this app is great at providing the public with information on how to avoid being tear gassed, beaten or arrested by avoiding the police. A lot of locals have been extremely pissed off with the police force. They have gone into very residential areas and fired tear gas unnecessarily among a whole host of other things.

Underrated comment

> This app specifically lists where the police are.

Since when is that a crime?

When news reporters cover a protest in US and show live where the police is, are they committing a crime?

It’s a crime if it’s being used to physically attack the cop.

Not to mention that laws are different in different countries.

This is a fair point. Laws are different, so procedures can be different. Not to mention the city’s situation is critical - protests - violence from both side.

Following US procedures in HK does not make sense. Companies always obey local laws but not laws in another country.

That's why I said Tim Cook should actually spell out what local Hong Kong laws were violated, if any. There actually could be some, but so far I did not see anybody actually pointing out any such laws, neither the Hong Kong government, nor the myriad of journalists covering the story about the app, nor Apple which surely had their in-house counsel and maybe evn external counsel look into this matter.

After that, the next question is if Apple, which even kinda positions itself as the new "Don't be evil" company including fighting some governments e.g. when they get told to subvert their own security tech, should side with such draconian laws or with the app makers.

The police are phsyically attacking the people, it's quite different. Yes, this app helps protestors, but it also helps the public avoid being treated extremely violently by the police.

I never said what the people were doing was wrong. All I said was that it would be illegal in some places if it’s being used for that.

As would any mapping app or Twitter?

No, listing where the police are is not a crime. Attacking the police is a crime. Inciting to attack the police is probably a crime too in most jurisdictions around the world. Neither the app nor the app makers attacked police nor endorsed let alone incited attacking the police.

A friend of mine is a police officer and regularly posts on Facebook about the events he's policing. By your logic, if someone used that information to track him down and attack him he's the one breaking the law?

Incidentally if he posted about a riot in our city (thankfully pretty much unheard of) he'd be carrying out exactly the same function as this app!

Every time there is a major protest or football (soccer) game in Germany, facebook and twitter and everything else is full of messages regarding major police presence. It's the protesters or fans warning each other, it's the local residents warning each other, oh, and the police itself is often an avid user of facebook and twitter itself warning people to avoid certain areas if there is violence to help regular citizens avoid getting caught up in it.

The vast majority of people do not post or read those messages to coordinate violence against the police, but merely to stay out of the way when police and black block protestors or football hooligans clash.

I live near a football stadium, and there are some violent clashes of drunk hooligans and police after many games, but thankfully usually only on a small scale involving maybe 10-30 people against the police. Nonetheless, I made it a habit to avoid certain area for a couple of hours after a home game.

By removing this app some amount of public opinion swings towards the notion that the HK Government (and police) are the victims here. Let's not forget the decision that led to the protests and the incidents of police brutality that have occurred since.

Perhaps avoiding police is the primary use case of the app.

Compare it to Waze, which somehow remains in the app store.

Is Waze available in HK or China?

Actually makes lot of sense. From the blog..

..the app aggregates reports from Telegram, Facebook and other sources.

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