13 ms·

From NBC News reporter @DylanByers on Twitter: “We created the App Store to be a safe and trusted place to discover apps. We have learned that an app, HKmap.li

From NBC News reporter @DylanByers on Twitter: “We created the App Store to be a safe and trusted place to discover apps. We have learned that an app, HKmap.live, has been used in ways that endanger law enforcement and residents in Hong Kong. Many concerned customers in Hong Kong have contacted us about this app and we immediately began investigating it. The app displays police locations and we have verified with the Hong Kong Cybersecurity and Technology Crime Bureau that the app has been used to target and ambush police, threaten public safety, and criminals have used it to victimize residents in areas where they know there is no law enforcement. This app violates our guidelines and local laws, and we have removed it from the App Store.”

bstar77 7y ago
That is some incredible spin.
- wutbrodo 7y ago
  I'm as sympathetic to the protests as anyone and I'm definitely not used to defending Apple's behavior, but are we sure that this is spin? Undoubtedly the app is being used for more than just "ambushing and attacking police". But absent a firm belief that this reason from the Chinese government is bullshit, it's actually a pretty tall order (and questionably ethical) for a corporation to push back against a govt demand to remove a tool ostensibly being used to attack police forces. My views on computing freedom generally skew towards the Stallman side of the spectrum, so I'd actually be fine with a stronger norm that Apple could tell govts to screw off[1]. But I'm very aware that I'm an outlier in this sense, and expecting Apple to push back in the face of a demand like this seems well beyond consistency with the norms that currently exist around tech companies' responsiveness expect to govt demands, on grounds of what the power relationship should be between governmental and corporate entities. [1] (and ideally stop being so heavy-handed about their own enforcement of App Store apps...but that's another story)
  - idlewords 7y ago
    The point is the app is not being used for ambushing and attacking police at all, because there have been no such ambushes in Hong Kong. The few situations where Hong Kong police have been in danger have come when a small group splits off and is isolated during a protest. In no case have protesters caught the police unawares in an ambush, let alone off-duty police. By its nature, the app shows large concentrations of police forces. The argument is ridiculous on its face, even if you don't know the situation on the ground in Hong Kong well. No one has been able to point to a single Hong Kong law this app violates, or to any example of it being misused in the way the statement alleges.
    - _tik_ 7y ago
      The protestors always try to find away to ambushes the police. There is a case that the protesters try to burn a police alive. The protester definitely monitoring the police movement to vandalize the train stations and the shops
      - saagarjha 7y ago
        > The protestors always try to find away to ambushes the police. So then why ban the app?
        _tik_ 7y ago
        To prevent the protestor to use the app for guerilla tactic. The protestor are known to ambush police if their number is small. And to play cat and mouse with the police to vandalize
    - rjf72 7y ago
      This [1] is the video of the first shooting in the Hong Kong protests - reasonably safe for life for anybody who has not seen it. Something I didn't understand when I first saw the video is how the protesters were able to do what they do. An armed group of protesters moved rapidly towards their target, and manage to ambush him around a blind corner. Their target was a single police officer that seems to have temporarily become separated from other officers. The protesters seemed to know this and all immediately set upon him. You could make an argument that somehow they used some other technology to carry out their attack, but I'm not sure how much weight it'd have beyond the fact that no we don't have video (to my knowledge) of one of those guys explicitly opening and looking at the app to find the target. In any case, it certainly refutes the argument that no protesters have managed to catch the police by surprise or ambush them - because that is exactly what happened. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PN4MvOrPotk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PN4MvOrPotk
idlewords 7y ago
These are pure lies, top to bottom.
- nneonneo 7y ago
  And how exactly would you know that? There is a great deal of animosity towards police right now in HK. A very small minority of protestors have demonstrated willingness to apply violence, and police (including off-duty officers) have been attacked in the open on more than one occasion. So I don’t think it’s inconceivable that the availability of a crowdsourced map might increase such incidents. Of course, this is going to end up being a pretext to ban the website too, which is going to introduce China-style internet censorship to HK. Nobody wants that. The way things are going, though, I don’t see how else this can go.
  - _Understated_ 7y ago
    > A very small minority of protestors have demonstrated willingness to apply violence, and police (including off-duty officers) have been attacked in the open on more than one occasion Haven't the police being doing the very same thing to protestors and innocent civilians?
  - potatofarmer45 7y ago
    Then by the same logic, WeChat should be banned since it's clearly documented to be used by Chinese Trolls to attack protesters in Australia and Canada.
    - nneonneo 7y ago
      If WeChat’s primary purpose was to track protestors overseas, then yeah, it should be banned. But that’s not what the app does. I want to be clear that I’m not trying to side with anyone here - I’m just calling out a knee-jerk response that I don’t believe is actually based in fact. If there’s good evidence that Apple or the HK government is inventing evidence of misuse, I’ll happily take back what I’ve said.
wtmt 7y ago
This sounds like a template blurb, not an actual stance. I wonder why Apple didn't remove WhatsApp from the App Store in India, since it was the platform used to lynch several people in the last few years. Local law in India prohibits people killing people. This is a slippery slope, and Apple fell right into it quickly instead of being cautious and fighting for what's right!
pfortuny 7y ago
Most likely a copy paste from what the CCP told them.
toomim 7y ago
This rationale focuses on how the app has been used, rather than what it does, which could apply equally well to any text messaging or web browser app that is used illegally. Imagine if this said: > We have learned that an app, iMessage, has been used in ways that endanger law enforcement and residents in Hong Kong. Many concerned customers in Hong Kong have contacted us about this app and we immediately began investigating it. The app displays police locations that people send via text message and we have verified with the Hong Kong Cybersecurity and Technology Crime Bureau that the app has been used to target and ambush police, threaten public safety, and criminals have used it to victimize residents in areas where they know there is no law enforcement. This app violates our guidelines and local laws, and we have removed it from the App Store.
- idlewords 7y ago
  Importantly, it also applies to anonymous AirDrop, which is heavily used by Hong Kong protesters. Will Apple disable that too?
- rdlecler1 7y ago
  Exactly, by that account, they should remove encryption on iMessage so that police can access it.
  - saagarjha 7y ago
    I'm actually quite surprised that iMessage has seemingly flown under the radar in authoritarian countries for this long…maybe nobody uses it there?
    - the_other 7y ago
      People only use it because it's enabled by default and takes over from SMS with minimal intervention. There's no point using it when there's also WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal/etc. The competition are largely cross-platform. I'm surprised Apple even bothered to make it in the first place. They could have saved themselves the effort and not got into that market, rather than making an app that makes them look bad.
mmsimanga 7y ago
As someone who has lived under a dictatorship this messaging has a familiar feel. As the now late dictator was clamping (beating and killing) down on opposition parties the press statements would always say something along the lines of, "we are protecting the rights of law abiding citizens". He never ever said I do not like anyone disagreeing with me.
- saagarjha 7y ago
  > we are protecting the rights of law abiding citizens I find it very interesting when people say they only protect the rights of "law abiding citizens", since this is usually just a veiled excuse for "we don't think people who break the law should have rights, actually, you shouldn't have rights because you might break the law too".
  - mmsimanga 7y ago
    I fully agree with you, that is actually the trick being pulled. The words used make it harder for people on the outside to decide who is actually the villain and who the good guys are.
- CrackerNews 7y ago
  What dictator is this by the way? Just curious.
Rebelgecko 7y ago
Will Apple also be taking down Waze and Facebook?

bstar77 7y ago

That is some incredible spin.

wutbrodo 7y ago
I'm as sympathetic to the protests as anyone and I'm definitely not used to defending Apple's behavior, but are we sure that this is spin? Undoubtedly the app is being used for more than just "ambushing and attacking police". But absent a firm belief that this reason from the Chinese government is bullshit, it's actually a pretty tall order (and questionably ethical) for a corporation to push back against a govt demand to remove a tool ostensibly being used to attack police forces. My views on computing freedom generally skew towards the Stallman side of the spectrum, so I'd actually be fine with a stronger norm that Apple could tell govts to screw off[1]. But I'm very aware that I'm an outlier in this sense, and expecting Apple to push back in the face of a demand like this seems well beyond consistency with the norms that currently exist around tech companies' responsiveness expect to govt demands, on grounds of what the power relationship should be between governmental and corporate entities. [1] (and ideally stop being so heavy-handed about their own enforcement of App Store apps...but that's another story)
- idlewords 7y ago
  The point is the app is not being used for ambushing and attacking police at all, because there have been no such ambushes in Hong Kong. The few situations where Hong Kong police have been in danger have come when a small group splits off and is isolated during a protest. In no case have protesters caught the police unawares in an ambush, let alone off-duty police. By its nature, the app shows large concentrations of police forces. The argument is ridiculous on its face, even if you don't know the situation on the ground in Hong Kong well. No one has been able to point to a single Hong Kong law this app violates, or to any example of it being misused in the way the statement alleges.
  - _tik_ 7y ago
    The protestors always try to find away to ambushes the police. There is a case that the protesters try to burn a police alive. The protester definitely monitoring the police movement to vandalize the train stations and the shops
    - saagarjha 7y ago
      > The protestors always try to find away to ambushes the police. So then why ban the app?
      - _tik_ 7y ago
        To prevent the protestor to use the app for guerilla tactic. The protestor are known to ambush police if their number is small. And to play cat and mouse with the police to vandalize
  - rjf72 7y ago
    This [1] is the video of the first shooting in the Hong Kong protests - reasonably safe for life for anybody who has not seen it. Something I didn't understand when I first saw the video is how the protesters were able to do what they do. An armed group of protesters moved rapidly towards their target, and manage to ambush him around a blind corner. Their target was a single police officer that seems to have temporarily become separated from other officers. The protesters seemed to know this and all immediately set upon him. You could make an argument that somehow they used some other technology to carry out their attack, but I'm not sure how much weight it'd have beyond the fact that no we don't have video (to my knowledge) of one of those guys explicitly opening and looking at the app to find the target. In any case, it certainly refutes the argument that no protesters have managed to catch the police by surprise or ambush them - because that is exactly what happened. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PN4MvOrPotk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PN4MvOrPotk

idlewords 7y ago

These are pure lies, top to bottom.

nneonneo 7y ago
And how exactly would you know that? There is a great deal of animosity towards police right now in HK. A very small minority of protestors have demonstrated willingness to apply violence, and police (including off-duty officers) have been attacked in the open on more than one occasion. So I don’t think it’s inconceivable that the availability of a crowdsourced map might increase such incidents. Of course, this is going to end up being a pretext to ban the website too, which is going to introduce China-style internet censorship to HK. Nobody wants that. The way things are going, though, I don’t see how else this can go.
- _Understated_ 7y ago
  > A very small minority of protestors have demonstrated willingness to apply violence, and police (including off-duty officers) have been attacked in the open on more than one occasion Haven't the police being doing the very same thing to protestors and innocent civilians?
- potatofarmer45 7y ago
  Then by the same logic, WeChat should be banned since it's clearly documented to be used by Chinese Trolls to attack protesters in Australia and Canada.
  - nneonneo 7y ago
    If WeChat’s primary purpose was to track protestors overseas, then yeah, it should be banned. But that’s not what the app does. I want to be clear that I’m not trying to side with anyone here - I’m just calling out a knee-jerk response that I don’t believe is actually based in fact. If there’s good evidence that Apple or the HK government is inventing evidence of misuse, I’ll happily take back what I’ve said.

wtmt 7y ago

This sounds like a template blurb, not an actual stance. I wonder why Apple didn't remove WhatsApp from the App Store in India, since it was the platform used to lynch several people in the last few years. Local law in India prohibits people killing people. This is a slippery slope, and Apple fell right into it quickly instead of being cautious and fighting for what's right!

pfortuny 7y ago

Most likely a copy paste from what the CCP told them.

toomim 7y ago

This rationale focuses on how the app has been used, rather than what it does, which could apply equally well to any text messaging or web browser app that is used illegally. Imagine if this said: > We have learned that an app, iMessage, has been used in ways that endanger law enforcement and residents in Hong Kong. Many concerned customers in Hong Kong have contacted us about this app and we immediately began investigating it. The app displays police locations that people send via text message and we have verified with the Hong Kong Cybersecurity and Technology Crime Bureau that the app has been used to target and ambush police, threaten public safety, and criminals have used it to victimize residents in areas where they know there is no law enforcement. This app violates our guidelines and local laws, and we have removed it from the App Store.

idlewords 7y ago
Importantly, it also applies to anonymous AirDrop, which is heavily used by Hong Kong protesters. Will Apple disable that too?
rdlecler1 7y ago
Exactly, by that account, they should remove encryption on iMessage so that police can access it.
- saagarjha 7y ago
  I'm actually quite surprised that iMessage has seemingly flown under the radar in authoritarian countries for this long…maybe nobody uses it there?
  - the_other 7y ago
    People only use it because it's enabled by default and takes over from SMS with minimal intervention. There's no point using it when there's also WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal/etc. The competition are largely cross-platform. I'm surprised Apple even bothered to make it in the first place. They could have saved themselves the effort and not got into that market, rather than making an app that makes them look bad.

mmsimanga 7y ago

As someone who has lived under a dictatorship this messaging has a familiar feel. As the now late dictator was clamping (beating and killing) down on opposition parties the press statements would always say something along the lines of, "we are protecting the rights of law abiding citizens". He never ever said I do not like anyone disagreeing with me.

saagarjha 7y ago
> we are protecting the rights of law abiding citizens I find it very interesting when people say they only protect the rights of "law abiding citizens", since this is usually just a veiled excuse for "we don't think people who break the law should have rights, actually, you shouldn't have rights because you might break the law too".
- mmsimanga 7y ago
  I fully agree with you, that is actually the trick being pulled. The words used make it harder for people on the outside to decide who is actually the villain and who the good guys are.
CrackerNews 7y ago
What dictator is this by the way? Just curious.

Rebelgecko 7y ago

Will Apple also be taking down Waze and Facebook?