If any of you have been following global news lately, you might have heard about the Hong Kong protest. For those who haven’t, hundreds of thousands of Honkongers have taken to the streets to protest an extradition bill. An extradition bill that was proposed because of a murder that happened in Taipei.
On February 8th, 2018 a young couple from Hong Kong flew to Taipei on a Valentine’s Day trip. Chan Tong-Kai , booked flights to Taipei back in December when they found out his girlfriend, Poon Hiu-wing, was 5 weeks pregnant. Sometime during the trip, Chan murders Poon and stuffs her body into a suitcase and dumped by a secluded area in Taipei. On March 13, 2018, Chan came returned to Hong Kong and confesses his murder to Hong Kong Police. When asked why he murdered his pregnant girlfriend, Chan said Poon has been cheating on him with her ex-boyfriend and the baby didn't belong to him. Hong Kong authorities couldn’t charge him for murder, because he committed the murder in Taiwan and they couldn't send him back to Taiwan because Hong Kong and Taiwan don’t have an extradition agreement. So in 2019, Hong Kong’s government proposed one; It allow Hong Kong to send suspects to Taiwan so they could be put on trial there. The problem was that the same bill allowed extradition to China. China’s legal system is known to be unfair, China has long been known to use their legal system to suppress their citizens and this is how the protests started.
Apple removes app after pressure from China
Of the 7.4 million residents of Hong Kong 44% of the population have iPhones, a big percentage of them belong to the the tech-savvy, and well-educated younger generation. Majority of the protesters fall into this category of iPhone user.
A crowd sourced mapping app called HKmap was a popular app Hong Kong residents use to obtain information about ongoing protest, police locations, and inform about street closures; essentially a map of Hong Kong. This app is very similar to a navigation or a crime reporting app, such as Waze and Citizen. Where app users can report a traffic jam or a criminal activity and other users could be alerted in real-time. A popular Chinese media outlet called out Apple’s decision to allow HKmap to be on the app store claiming
“Providing a gateway for ‘toxic apps’ is hurting the feelings of the Chinese people, twisting the facts of Hong Kong affairs, and against the views and principles of the Chinese people”
Since then Apple has removed HKmap from the app store with a statement claiming that the app violates their guidelines and local laws and that the app has been used to endanger law enforcement.
Apple’s statement:
“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.”
Apple also remove a news app called Quartz from China’s app store which gained a huge following for its strong coverage of the Hong Kong Protests.
According to the China internet Network Information Center, a branch of Information Technology that oversees internet policy claims approximately 16.8% of the Chinese population (~131 million) uses iPhone followed by about 100 million iPhone Users and only 3 million users in Hong Kong.
So when it come down to the money, losing 3 million users is the obvious choice even when its morally and ethically wrong.