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It appears that Apple has rejected an app that warns Hong Kongers about police activity. The Hong Kong police force shot a high schooler in the chest yesterday and put seventy people, from 11 to 75, in the hospital. That app saves lives in Hong Kong. Let me tweet about it a bit
HKmap.live is a crowdsourced map that consolidates reports from people on Telegram. Here's a screenshot from last night's protests. You can see MTR closures (red circle with slash), police patrols (puppy), police cars, known safe places (house icon) and more 
The map warns you in real time of things like tear gas being fired in residential neighborhoods. It warns of police presence because cops are arbitrarily arresting young people for things like wearing the wrong color t-shirt. It helps people find a way home when the MTR is closed
If you go to the periphery of any Hong Kong protest, you will see people frantic to get away from police activity, often families with young children, or elderly people struggling to walk quickly, in obvious pain. As I said before, it's not the protesters they're afraid of
The Hong Kong police are now openly at war with the population of their city. They can't go anywhere without residents—not protesters—calling them gangsters and much worse. They've been attacking journalists who try to keep them accountable.
To deny the people of Hong Kong one of the few tools that defends them against police aggression is such a craven act that I can't even put it into words. Is Apple going to side with "law enforcement" in every dictatorship on the planet? Is coddling China worth that much to them?
On behalf of tech people in America, I would like to apologize to the people of Hong Kong for this humiliating display by our biggest tech company. These are not the fundamental American values you have in mind when you wave our flag at your protests, and we must do better
CORRECTION: I said upthread that Hong Kong police had put 70 people in the hospital last night. The correct number is 104
I can't stop tweeting because I'm so angry (this should be the site motto). Another thing the map shows is when police raise a blue flag for ILLEGAL ASSEMBLY. Wandering into this puts you in legal jeopardy, a potential 5-10 year jail sentence. And the police don't want you there!
So in a whole bunch of scenarios, HKMAP helps residents comply with the wishes of law enforcement (who communicate their demands by colored flags quickly raised in the dark). Apple's stated rationale makes no sense and I believe they are simply lying to avoid angering China
Delighted to learn that Apple has approved HKmap and it will soon be available for download. Whether it was a bureacratic snafu or misguided policy, thanks to whoever acted fast at Apple to fix this.
The developer of HKmap is also asking for donations to defray the costs of hosting the site. For safety/anonymity reasons, at present they can only accept payment in Bitcoin.
