[mrobot]

Maybe it wouldn't be shut down by police unions but what about lawmakers and politicians? So you believe that an app known to be enabling and protecting protests on the level of what's happening in Hong Kong, with regular destruction of property, molotovs, knives to police, etc. would be allowed to stay on the app store? Hong Kong protests seem like a lot more activity than "petitioning the government", closer to revolution i think. I'm not sure even twitter would stay up. I feel like it would take lots of lawyers on your side. Maybe, I guess i'm not convinced yet.

[reaperducer]

So you believe that an app known to be enabling and protecting protests on the level of what's happening in Hong Kong, with regular destruction of property, molotovs, knives to police, etc. would be allowed to stay on the app store?

Yes, it's called Twitter. It's happened many times before, complete with fire and mayhem.

In the United States, protests are rarely just "the people" because the politicians are also "the people."

A subset of politicians who oversee the police are very often in the front of any protest march. In addition to community leaders, clergy, and other people the police don't want to screw with.

I know there are a few Hong Kong politicians involved in those protests, but not at the level that is typical in the United States.

In spite of the sensationalized and rare incidents that are publicized on the internet, in America politicians = people > police.

[mrobot]

I guess what i'm arguing is that if fire and mayhem was ongoing in the US in the form of a revolution my belief is that the system would shut it down in any way it could. I know social media stayed up during e.g. the Freddy Gray protests but those were short lived. The ferguson protests were longer but were largely peaceful except for the no-indictment day. And if it was something more widespread and ongoing that was a serious threat to order IN THE US I don't believe these systems would be allowed to stay up. I believe they may even shut down cell phone systems. They have stayed up in when other countries were under threat of course but i'm talking about real revolution in the US where people start regularly doing what the Hong Kong protesters do, destruction of entire banks etc., but maybe i am wrong. It's just that we've never seen the level of the Hong Kong riots because police would shoot to kill in the US for that kind of activity, so it's hard to compare.