Battle sparked with internet giants over data privacy
Several Western social media giants, such as Facebook, Twitter and Telegram, which are now in the spotlight, made highprofile announcements that they will “pause” processing the Hong Kong government’s request to access data, following some local and foreign media outlets’ exaggeration of the national security law enforcement rules they described as eroding Hong Kong’s online privacy, a move experts call a cheap show of their “moral standards.”
Will those social media platforms, which have frequently caused controversy for breaching users’ privacy and shown double standards in Chinarelated issues, be able to shield themselves from the jurisdiction of the law, and is the Hong Kong authority able to rein them in? Experts said it is yet another low cost double standard show they orchestrated to display their so-called “protection of human rights and freedom of speech,” but eventually, those money-chasing corporations will bow to market profits and be subject to legal jurisdiction.
Hypocrisy and double standards
The Hong Kong government has released implementation rules of an article from the national security law, which took effect on Tuesday. The rules give the police the power to remove online messages that endanger national security, and to request assistance.
Hong Kong chief executive Carrie Lam said at
a Tuesday press conference that the rule was a guarantee , but stressed that it targets only four groups of actions that threaten national security, and is not aimed at persecuting or doxxing certain groups.
Facebook, Twitter and Telegram have been popular tools for Hong Kong rioters to call for illegal assemblies and doxx police officers. Posts promoting Hong Kong secession are rife on these platforms.
Platforms such as Telegram have always fallen into rioters’ hands to organize riots, Ronny Chan, chairman of the Superintendents’ Association of the Hong Kong Police Force, told the Global Times on Tuesday.
These companies have always refused to cooperate with police on law enforcement, because there were no legal terms, they only operate under corporation status, said Chan.
Last October, Facebook turned a blind eye to the Hong Kong Police Force’s reasonable requests to remove defamatory posts against them.
The rule was soon hyped by some local media and some foreign media as a government attempt to access users’ data. This also propelled social media giants, like Facebook, to make highprofile announcements that they “paused” processing government requests.
Experts pointed out this is yet another offence by anti-government forces and certain media groups targeting the national security law.
Now that the central government and pro-establishment forces have taken the initiative over national security issues in Hong Kong and made huge progress in the relevant legislation process, the contention has moved to law enforcement phase, Li Xiaobing, an expert on Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan from Nankai University in Tianjin, told the Global Times on Tuesday.
Social media platforms, as service providers, should abide by local laws and regulations in dealing with harmful information, such as pornography, information that threatens national security, or information that goes against local religious beliefs or values, said Li.
Also, they are required to eliminate information that endangers national security upon monitoring speech, Gu Minkang, the associate dean of the School of Law at the City University of Hong Kong, told the Global Times.
Gu said that discourse that endangers national security is a felony, and it should not be treated like ordinary speech, noting that saying the law is suppressing freedom of speech is an utter exaggeration.
Fang Xingdong, founder of Beijing-based technology think tank ChinaLabs, told the Global Times that Western countries have imposed similar laws asking for those platforms to assist with encryption in certain cases and to handle relevant information for authorities, such as the Investigatory Powers Act of the UK and the EU-US Privacy Shield signed between the US and the EU.
Those platforms, which claim to idolize “freedom of speech… respect basic human rights,” are actually practicing double standards, especially on China, said experts.
Qin An, head of the Beijing-based Institute of China Cyberspace Strategy, pointed out that the se social media platforms have been politicized and controlled by the US government, and they have long disregarded the spirit of rule of law.
Li told the Global Times that if those platforms refused to cooperate, the Hong Kong government has administrative power to assess and manage, regarding the information on these platforms and the potential social damage the information may cause.