HK demands online platforms remove banned song

HONG KONG: The city-state demanded that a protest song popular during pro-democracy demonstrations be removed from the internet after a court banned it, judging it was a “weapon” to incite violent protests in 2019.

Wednesday’s ban comes after a campaign by the city’s authorities against the song, which has seen them demand it be removed from Google’s search results and other content-sharing platforms – a request that has been largely rebuffed.

“The government ... will communicate with internet service providers, request or demand them to remove content in accordance with the injunction order,” said Paul Lam, the semi-autonomous city’s secretary for justice.

The move is to “persuade the internet service providers not to provide the convenience and not to facilitate the commission of unlawful acts”, Lam said.

Glory to Hong Kong is the first song to be banned in the former British colony since it was handed over to China in 1997.

The song grew popular during the protests. Its defiant lyrics incorporate the key protest slogan “Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our times”.

Industry group Asia Internet Coalition, representing tech giants such as Google and Spotify, said it was assessing the implications of the decision.

“We believe that a free and open internet is fundamental to the city’s ambitions to become an international technology and innovation hub,” said Jeff Paine, the group’s managing director.

Soon after the judgment was handed down, Beijing authorities said the ban was a “necessary” for “safeguarding national security”.

Hong Kong-based cybersecurity expert Anthony Lai explained that if a platform was to comply with the ban, they would have to ensure the song cannot have a Hong Kong IP address or Hong Kong users cannot access the song.

“I understand the government’s need to defend national security, but I worry it would take up too much of their resources to police the whole internet,” Lai said.

After the ban was announced, a few YouTube links of the song – listed in Wednesday’s judgment document – appeared to be inaccessible, though many others remained up.

Lam insisted the ban did not hurt the city’s free speech.

“Free flow of information is of crucial importance to Hong Kong,” he said, adding “we are concerned with very specific unlawful behaviours”.

Amnesty International’s director for China, Sarah Brooks, decried the ban as “ludicrous” and “dangerous”, representing “a senseless attack on Hongkongers’ freedom of expression” which “violates international human rights law”.

The United States also slammed the ban, with State Department spokesman Matthew Miller saying the move represented “the latest blow to the international reputation of a city that previously prided itself on having an independent judiciary protecting the free exchange of information, ideas and goods”.

Since 2020, after the protests were quashed and Beijing’s national security law enacted, public dissent has largely been absent.