Google on Thursday removed from its online marketplace a mobile game that lets users play as Hong Kong protesters, saying it breached a policy against cashing in on conflicts.
The move came after Apple removed an app criticized by China for allowing protesters in Hong Kong to track police and as Beijing steps up pressure on foreign companies deemed to be providing support to the pro-democracy movement.
Google said its decision to remove the game The Revolution of Our Times from its Play Store did not result from any takedown requests by Hong Kong police or any other party outside the California-based company.
“We have a longstanding policy prohibiting developers from capitalizing on sensitive events such as attempting to make money from serious ongoing conflicts or tragedies through a game,” Google said in response to an inquiry. “After careful review, we found this app to be violating that particular policy and suspended it, as we have done with similar attempts to profit from other high-profile events such as earthquakes, crises, suicides and conflicts.”
Apple chief executive Tim Cook on Thursday defended the company’s decision to remove the Hkmap.live app, saying that the company received “credible information” from authorities indicating the software was being used “maliciously” to attack police.
“Over the past several days we received credible information, from the Hong Kong Cybersecurity and Technology Crime Bureau, as well as from users in Hong Kong, that the app was being used maliciously to target individual officers for violence and to victimize individuals and property where no police are present,” Cook wrote in a company memo. “These decisions are never easy, and it is harder still to discuss these topics during moments of furious public debate. National and international debates will outlive us all, and, while important, they do not govern the facts. In this case, we thoroughly reviewed them, and we believe this decision best protects our users.”
Hong Kong Legislator Charles Mok (莫乃光) said that he was “deeply disappointed” by Apple’s move and contested the company’s reasons in an open letter to Cook.
“There are numerous cases of innocent passersby in the neighbourhood injured by the Hong Kong Police Force’s excessive force in crowd dispersal operations,” Mok wrote in the letter, which he posted on Twitter.
“Information shared using HKmap.live in fact helps citizens avoid areas where pedestrians not involved in any criminal activities might be subjected to police brutality,” he wrote.
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