Tim Cook’s Company-Wide Email on Hkmap.live Doesn’t Add Up
Can I play devil&#x27;s advocate for just a moment? Gruber asks for evidence. His only complaints seems to be the lack of evidence and a question of whether the app violates local (Hong Kong) law. Cook&#x27;s memo directly addresses both of those issues:<p>&gt; However, 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. This use put the app in violation of Hong Kong law.<p>So then, is the complaint simply that Cook is not providing <i>direct</i> evidence of these claims? Is that a reasonable expectation? What evidence could Cook provide that would directly tie violence (we know that Hong Kong protesters have committed violence) to this particular app? It seems like everyone agrees that this app was useful for organizing Hong Kong protests, and that <i>some</i> Hong Kong protesters have committed violence and broken local laws.<p>Please don&#x27;t take this as some statement of political support for any particular government, company, or group. I&#x27;m attempting to address the specifics of this memo and Gruber&#x27;s complaints. I am not attempting to make any argument of the form &quot;the Hong Kong protests are [good, bad] and therefore any tool that helps the protesters is [good, bad].&quot; The overall merits of the Hong Kong protests are not, from what I can tell, relevant to Apple&#x27;s decision to ban this app or Gruber&#x27;s complaints about Apple&#x27;s decision and memo.