Your point is valid but in the case of App Store and Google play, they require to be an institution with an authority if you are building anything about the COVID-19 pandemic. So the route would be to partner with a medical institution that is reputable enough for Apple and Google.
From their perspective, it makas sence because otherwise the App Analytics would pick up that there is this thing called coronavirus and is popular so from business perspective they should target it and the search results would degrade. Then the analytics would pick up that testing positive on Covid-19 test app has a good conversation rate and people would make apps where you test positive(or whatever goes. conspiracy theories, denialists - anything that brings eyeballs). This is essentially what happened with the News market. Analytics showed what kind of news people like and publishers made the news that people demand. They simply wrote the articles that brought most eyeballs.
When you own the platform, then it is your responsibility to spread it. Good luck with that, you can be a good citizen or conspiracy theorist and it is all fine until you succeed. If you are the "undesirable" and you actually succeed then people will start talking how to block your platform. You can be undesirable by telling the truth(journalism) or invoke trouble(shootings, racism and so on).
Owning the platform is not going to be the solution, it will simply delay the consequences.
From their perspective, it makas sence because otherwise the App Analytics would pick up that there is this thing called coronavirus and is popular so from business perspective they should target it and the search results would degrade. Then the analytics would pick up that testing positive on Covid-19 test app has a good conversation rate and people would make apps where you test positive(or whatever goes. conspiracy theories, denialists - anything that brings eyeballs). This is essentially what happened with the News market. Analytics showed what kind of news people like and publishers made the news that people demand. They simply wrote the articles that brought most eyeballs.
When you own the platform, then it is your responsibility to spread it. Good luck with that, you can be a good citizen or conspiracy theorist and it is all fine until you succeed. If you are the "undesirable" and you actually succeed then people will start talking how to block your platform. You can be undesirable by telling the truth(journalism) or invoke trouble(shootings, racism and so on).
Owning the platform is not going to be the solution, it will simply delay the consequences.