On Thursday, Google removed a role-playing game from its online marketplace or app store based on the Hong Kong protests, saying it violated a policy against cashing in on conflicts.
Google yanks Hong Kong protester role-playing app
This move by Google came after Apple removed an app criticized by China for letting the protesters in Hong Kong to track police, and as Beijing steps up pressure on foreign companies believed to be offering some support to the pro-democracy movement.
Google also said in a statement on Friday that the company has a “We have a long-standing policy prohibiting developers from capitalizing on sensitive events such as attempting to make money from serious ongoing conflicts or tragedies through a game.”
“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” they added.
In the meantime, Apple pulled HKmap.live in a move blasted as an additional case of companies outside of China bowing to the will of that country’s regime.
Apple recently said that it had received complaints about the app from many people in Hong Kong, who said that it had been used in ways that “endanger law enforcement and residents in Hong Kong.”
This week, Chinese state media tore into the app, which organizes data on police locations that were submitted by users, accusing that it was helping “rioters.” Communist Party mouthpiece The People’s Daily also stated by stocking the app, Apple was “mixing business with politics, and even illegal acts.” The app was no longer available on Apple’s Hong Kong App Store from Thursday.
The exclusion of the app was “not in response to a government request but because the app violated the Play Store’s policies,” a Google spokesperson said in a sttement.
