These are pure lies, top to bottom.
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.
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.
Off-duty police are not even tracked on the map, so I don't get your argument even if I accepted the false premise that attacks on police are common.
It’s clear that attacks against off-duty police officers have happened in the past, so I included that aside as an example of the threats that police face. Of course those attacks predate the map app. Those are also the kinds of attacks that tend to make news, because they’re essentially attacks against civilians (similarly, this is why news of police attacks against civilians make news).
One of the signs (as it always is) is the footwear used by the officers differs between actual HK police and Chinese military forces in HK police uniform.
Another problem is that there are times when it's difficult to identify when the protestors are HK citizens, or when the protestors are Chinese military in plain clothes.
There was an incident a few weeks back where a fire was set outside Central MTR station which was reported to have been set by HK protestors. There was graffiti on the wall to this effect. The graffiti was written in simplified Chinese, which is used in the mainland. In Hong Kong, they use traditional Chinese in written communications.
The difficulty is in accurate attribution. Terrorist groups will take credit for atrocities they didn't commit because it's beneficial for them and their cause. Which then leads down the rabbit hole of asking who benefits from violence in HK? It's also worth looking at the history of protests in HK, how frequently they have occurred, and how often violence has actually erupted.
It's a country that successfully peacefully protested numerous times, to great effect.
> The way things are going, though, I don’t see how else this can go.
Fortunately, the people in HK don't share this view, and continue to protest for their rights and their freedoms. They're not giving up, they're not giving in. It's easy to be this pessimistic when you live in a western country, where peaceful protests in recent history (~20 years or so) are almost completely ineffective. When you've lived in a place where peaceful protests have historically been effective, it's a different story. Especially when it's literally your own life on the line.
Haven't the police being doing the very same thing to protestors and innocent civilians?