Today we are all looking askance at the protests that are taking place in Hong Kong, and the problem is quite evident. This is a serious problem and a group of developers published an application that allows to know at all times where the police are acting against the protesters.
This may seem a negative thing, but we can also think that it is a positive thing for users who do not attend these demonstrations in which violence between one and the other is reaching really high levels.
The commotion is evident after the removal of the app and the climate of violence
According to Apple's own words, they are not doing anything illegal with the elimination of the HKmap Live app since according to the company helped protesters evade the police notifying the actions that would be carried out in specific locations. Apple told the app's developer team this:
Your application contains content, or facilitates, enables and encourages activity that is not legal… specifically, the application allowed users to evade the application of the law.
On the other hand we find the opposition of the Chinese government. It is thought that this has been a maneuver promoted by the authorities to prevent them from becoming stronger in the protests and thus causing more incidents. In fact the weather is so tense that last Tuesday a protester was shot at point-blank range on the chest by a policeman. There is no fear for his life but he is still hospitalized and the tension between one and the other continues to increase. Some users claimed to use this app to avoid clashes in the city that have reached levels of extreme violence.
Last year 2017 Apple already removed a good handful of VPN applications from the App Store in China, following the regulations approved by the government of the country. If it removes it because it removes it, and if it does not remove it because it does not, in any case the problem is not Apple this time or at least we want to believe that it is not to blame. Anyway the controversy is assured and this is one more app that has been eliminated by the company in the country.