Facebook, Twitter, Google Face Free-Speech Test in Hong Kong (wsj.com) 62
U.S. technology titans face a looming test of their free-speech credentials in Hong Kong as China's new national-security law for the city demands local authorities take measures to supervise and regulate its uncensored internet. From a report: Facebook and its Instagram service, Twitter and YouTube, a unit of Alphabet's Google, operate freely in the city even as they have been shut out or opted out of the mainland's tightly controlled internet, which uses the "Great Firewall" to censor information. In Hong Kong many citizens have grown accustomed to freely using their accounts to speak out on political matters, voice support for antigovernment protests, and register their anger at China's increasing sway over the city. Now the U.S. tech companies face a high-wire act, analysts say, if authorities here ask them to delete user accounts or their content. Refusal could invite Beijing's scrutiny and potentially put them at risk of legal action under the new national-security law. Complying would alienate longtime users in the city, some of whom continue to speak out on their platforms, and leave the companies open to criticism from politicians in the U.S. or U.K.
Among the tech giants, Twitter said in a statement it "has grave concerns" about the law and is "committed to protecting the people using our service and their freedom of expression." Twitter said it is reviewing the new rules, "particularly as some of the terms of the law are vague and without clear definition." Measures to better supervise the internet and foreign media were provisions tucked into China's national-security law for the city. The law criminalizes activities in four vaguely defined areas covering secession, subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces. "Tech companies will absolutely receive more requests to remove information that is allegedly harmful to natural security from the relevant authorities," said Haochen Sun, a law professor at the University of Hong Kong. He said companies will face difficulties especially with borderline cases, such as potential requests to remove songs, for instance, that protesters have used in antigovernment demonstrations.
Among the tech giants, Twitter said in a statement it "has grave concerns" about the law and is "committed to protecting the people using our service and their freedom of expression." Twitter said it is reviewing the new rules, "particularly as some of the terms of the law are vague and without clear definition." Measures to better supervise the internet and foreign media were provisions tucked into China's national-security law for the city. The law criminalizes activities in four vaguely defined areas covering secession, subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces. "Tech companies will absolutely receive more requests to remove information that is allegedly harmful to natural security from the relevant authorities," said Haochen Sun, a law professor at the University of Hong Kong. He said companies will face difficulties especially with borderline cases, such as potential requests to remove songs, for instance, that protesters have used in antigovernment demonstrations.
They don't care (Score:1)
about free speech in America. Why would they care in Hong Kong?
they lack a lot of choice (Score:4, Interesting)
It would be one thing for China to tell them to censor chinese citizens living in the USA. It would be another for China to tell them to censor Hong Kong.
The difference is that in the first case their choice is to do it or face losing the china market. There's no legal compulsion. In reality, they would probably get rescued by US laws that could be written to say they can't comply with censoring anyone residing in the US.
In the second case, it will actually be the law in Hong Kong. If they violate that then not only will they lose the china market but they will lose the HK market too. China will just cut them off from HK. So it's a question of deliver nothing the HK or deliver censored material. And it actually is going up against a legal system.
So they pretty much have to do it. But the one thing they can do is wait. They wait till China gives them an ultimatum forcing them to react. But in the end if China wants it they will get it.
Should you blame the companies. I suppose it depends if you think having a Facebook account materially supports the regime. As a counter point, Texaco and IBM and other companies found ways to continue doing bussiness with Nazi germany. (Given the Xiughur concentration camps, forced sterilization, and the Lebensraum in Tibet and India there's some parallels to be made here with pre-war Nazi germany. ) But it could be argued that buying or selling oil and supplying machinery are materially supportive. IS Facebook? Is letting people communicate actually building out a middle class that will one day be the natural way to temper the regime? One can argue that either way I think.
Re: they lack a lot of choice (Score:2)
Did you notice that China just threw out the hand over treaty and effectively fully annexed Hong Kong last week?
There is no longer such a concept of "Hong Kong" as a separate political entity from Chinese mainland. Hong Kong is just another mainland city now, no different than Shanghai or Beijing.
And FB, Twitter Google etc won't at all resist Chinese censorship or handing over data to freedom loving Chinese. China has money, lots of internet users and a political philosophy not much different than their s
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And FB, Twitter Google etc won't at all resist Chinese censorship or handing over data to freedom loving Chinese.
Why should they? They would not resist THEIR own censorship. Ask Damore, leftist alternative media [wsws.org] or whoever does not conform to the accepted mainstream. By the way, where are those people saying that twitter had all the rights to censor Trump, because they are a private company? Are they hiding under a rock now?
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In the second case, it will actually be the law in Hong Kong. If they violate that then not only will they lose the china market but they will lose the HK market too. China will just cut them off from HK. So it's a question of deliver nothing the HK or deliver censored material. And it actually is going up against a legal system.
I think the point is there is no difference between China and HK effectively, right now. HK is now just China, with fancy entry passes and funny looking currency. It's not going to be too long (my bet - less than a year) before the HKD is no longer indexed to the USD but to the RMB.
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Good luck with that.
Honest question: why?
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Good luck with that.
Honest question: why?
Because then they are completely exposed to all the currency risk of the RMB. Now, currently the RMB is almost as stable as the USD or EUR but that's just recently. If something happens to seriously disrupt the Chinese economy (which has happened 3 times in the last 10 years), then it becomes hard to value just about anything coming from HK. And foreign client's for HK's financial companies and banks won't be paying in RMB which exposes those businesses to currency risk. So when the RMB has an issue, ev
Stop the China market nonsense talk (Score:2)
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I did not know that. interesting
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Google & Co have business in China despite their platforms being banned. They are the top platforms for Chinese businesses to advertise on when they want to reach customers in Africa, Asia, India, Latin America or any other place that is not China.
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Should you blame the companies.
Well, yeah. At the very least you can call them hypocritical. I mean, FTFS:
Twitter said in a statement it "has grave concerns" about the law and is "committed to protecting the people using our service and their freedom of expression."
That's about as hypocritical as it gets - try expressing "#learntocode", or holding the opinion that all lives matter.
Even more hilariously, they continue:
Twitter said it is reviewing the new rules, "particularly as some of the terms of the law are vague and without clear definition."
All of the recent clampdown on wrongthink in the West has been via vague and subjective rules, without clear definition. That's basically what Code-of-Conducts are - enough leeway to witch-hunt while vague enough so that the in-group won't be in violation.
The wrongthink brigade
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China says no then it's a matter of who can make them say yes
Are we sure the current state of the state in other places is better or just more covert ?
the lack of the need to be governed seems to be far away and they seem to be happy to let the masses demonstrate that (quite li
Spare Us Your Crocodile Tears, Slashdot (Score:3)
https://yro.slashdot.org/story... [slashdot.org]
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Oh? So can you show us a direct source to the fact that Reddit deleted these accounts at the request of the USA government? If not I can only conclude that you don't understand the issues, don't understand the legal requirements neither in HK nor the USA, and don't understand the differences of what is currently being discussed vs what a private group voluntarily did.
If Slashdot deleted your account because they didn't like you, I wouldn't care. If Slashdot deleted your account because the government asked
Re: Spare Us Your Crocodile Tears, Slashdot (Score:2)
Yeah, everything you don't have a "direct source" for, doesn't exist.
Common sense? Prediction of likeliness based on past experience? What's that?
Oh my, ...
*points at non-existing clipboard*
It says here, we don't have a direct source for your existence!
*poof*
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Political censorship restricts the open market of ideas. Regardless of who is issuing the order. Be it the government or the owner of a communications platform.
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Re: They don't care (Score:2)
Facebook and Twitter are already banned in China. There is no reason ($$$) for them to acquiesce to China.
Lol they censor in America (Score:1)
What chance do we have in Hong Kong????
Their Chinese employees' been censoring stuff b4 (Score:3)
Their Chinese employees' been censoring stuff before this new law. Their CCP-loving friends will complain posts from HongKongers or Taiwanese in Facebook or Twitter that are uneasy to their mind. Then under the super-naive mindset of Chinese-checking-Chinese-writings, it is easy to assign speech that "hate" evil China to be "hate speech" and delete for their peace of mind. Youtubers are also cut from ad-income by similar means.
Let see if international concerns and pressure this time may or may not pull all their Chinazi employees away from those job positions.
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inb4 censored:
Carrie Lam became China's Bitch when she didn't allow the full draft of the National Security Law to be public until after passing. WTF! Fuck you Xi Pooh.
Re: INT COMPANIES NEED TO STAYOUT OF POLITICS!!! (Score:2)
Lol. Go find me as senator that ISN'T a corporate lobbyist.
Good luck, "voter!".
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Voting with a ballot in this country has no discernable effect. There's only two parties the electoral college voters (the real people with voting rights) will vote for, and those have both gone before the Supreme Court to affirm their ability to simply pick as they wish, regardless of any pesky voting.
On top of that, the only people allowed into the system are people willing to lay down some tongue grease for the megacorporations, while pointing to Citizens United and saying, "Won't someone think of the co
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Voting with a ballot in this country has no discernable effect. There's only two parties the electoral college voters (the real people with voting rights) will vote for,
Okay, but the post you're replying to mentioned senator. And our votes also count more the more local they are.
Unfortunately, the electoral college means my vote for President has never really mattered. Unless you live in a swing state, it's a foregone conclusion. I've lived in a couple solidly red states. The state I live in now was still called a swing state in 2016, but I'd say we're definitely blue. They're putting us in light blue on maps.
Some people are talking about Texas and Florida going blue,
It is done, put a fork in it (Score:3, Insightful)
It's over for Hong Kong.
If the US had a real leader this would not have happened. the EU, US and SE Asia countries could have worked together to stop this. As it is the EU does not trust anything the US says or does these days and the same goes for most of our other allies.
China saw an opening and finally pulled out the thorn in its side. I hope Hong Kong's banking companies move, but probably too much profit in laundering money from the rich Mainland people.
Re:It is done, put a fork in it (Score:5, Insightful)
You mean how Obama stopped the Russians occupying Crimea?
The Crimea voted overwhelmingly to go with Russia (Score:2)
Although the Ukraine may well have had historical claim over it, the population today is overwhelmingly Russian. And Woodrow Wilson's principal of self determination should trump accidents of history. Same goes for Taiwan and Kurdistan -- both populations overwhelmingly want to stay independent.
So not comparable at all, and making a big fuss about the wrong things wastes political capital.
I personally think that the Hong Kong protesters did not play their cards well. Xi Jinping is a nasty dictator and wa
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Why such a tragic tone? Hong Kong simply returns into parents' house after being brutally and treacherously stolen by Britain from China in the 19th century as a result of The Opium Wars, when the British behaved like state sponsored cartel tugs with an army forcing drugs onto China and taking over a bunch of Chinese territories. It's about time.
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Why not ask actual Hong Kongers whether THEY think the current developments are a good thing or a bad thing? (You might want to refer to their most recent election results.)
Are you just pretending to be autistic, or is this a real struggle for you every day?
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Why such a tragic tone? Hong Kong simply returns into parents' house
Yes, its abusive parents. But breaking with that silly metaphor, China literally does not have rule of law. There is no right to say what you think. The government messes with its people's digital communications, randomly or purposely blocking access to all sorts or organizations. Under China's direction, the HK police have become brutal (unlike before).
A word like "parents" makes the concept sound warm and comfortable, but China doesn't know what to do with a free society under its control except choke it
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You have to admire admire the ingenuity [youtu.be] of some Hong Kong citizens. This guy was one of the first to be arrested. He had a banner on the ground that read:
no to HONG KONG INDEPENDENCE
The "no to" was in very, very tiny print. LOL.
--
Carrie Lam became China's Bitch when she didn't allow the full draft of the National Security Law to be public until after passing . WTF! Fuck you Xi Pooh.
Re:It is done, put a fork in it (Score:5, Insightful)
It's over for Hong Kong.
If the US had a real leader this would not have happened. the EU, US and SE Asia countries could have worked together to stop this. As it is the EU does not trust anything the US says or does these days and the same goes for most of our other allies.
China saw an opening and finally pulled out the thorn in its side. I hope Hong Kong's banking companies move, but probably too much profit in laundering money from the rich Mainland people.
WTH are you talking about? Hong Kong's lease was up in ... 1997? If the West had said then "um, yeah, the lease wasn't with a communist dictatorship. We ain't leaving." then things would be different.
The West literally handed HK back to China in 1997 (what did anybody think was going to happen??), and you are blaming Trump?
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... and you are blaming Trump?
It's all Trumps fault for a) not stopping it when it originally happened in 1997, and b) for not going BACK in time right now and stopping it back then now ... then ... NOW then. You know what I mean.
It's always all his fault. Period. If only Obama had killed Trump as a infant, Hitler never would have been born.
Free Speech credentials (Score:2)
Oh please donâ(TM)t insult them by asking for that. Thatâ(TM)s mean.
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Well, we already have instances of them doing exactly that. Remember how people at Google felt strong enough that what the company was doing was massively unethical to risk their jobs? Any large enterprise is just after money and power and they do not care who they have to rape and who they have to kill to get it. Some that grew fast may take a bit longer to get there, but they always do.
And once they have that profiling and surveillance (and policing) software optimized in HK, they will look for ways to mo
Authorities (Score:2)
The problem is the definition of "authorities". Simply prefix all use of "authorities" with "self-proclaimed" as in "self-proclaimed authorities" and give their *opinions* the same weight as every other self-proclaimed twatter expert. Problem solved.
This is an American Cultural problem -- subservience to anyone who would call themselves master -- and not any real problem.
Re: Authorities (Score:2)
Oh kid . . .
Authority is defined by whoever has the biggest stick and willingness to use it.
As are rights, laws, property, and so on.
They are for-profit corporations. (Score:3)
They want in on the local market, so they obey the local rules. What do you expect?
They will just as much obey a "national security" letter in the US, as a Chinese official threatening to throw their local employees in a "re-education" camp and block theis site.
You're thinking of ... whatever you call an organization whose goal isn't profit but the improvement of humanity or something like that. No idea what to call them, since I haven't seen on yet. At least not in the capitalist "first" world that is my society, and I doubt I'd find any in China either, despite their fake communist veil.
Re: They are for-profit corporations. (Score:2)
Which local? Are you completely oblivious to the Hong Kong v. China thing?
Money Over Everything (Score:2)
Re: Money Over Everything (Score:2)
Google is the only one not already blocked by the Great Firewall. China has no leverage on Twitter and FB. The only company we should be talking about here is Google.
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They would just like to make tons more of money without having to change the fairy-tales they tell the rest of the world about what their "values" are. Because changing such lies is expensive and they may just find it more difficult to hire talented people as a result. But in the end, they will go for the money, no matter what atrocities they have to commit to get it.
Free speech? (Score:2)
I'm sorry, what? Facebook, Twitter, Google ... "free speech"?
Aren't they the companies that disappear you if you say unapproved things?
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Companies that exercise their Right to Freedom of Association.
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Companies that exercise their Right to Freedom of Association.
He didn't say they didn't do that, he accused them of being hypocritical, which they are when it comes to freedom of expression.
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Everyone seems to be hypocritical when it comes to freedom of expression. Though those companies were upfront about not allowing all expression. Just try to post a picture of a baby eating or bathing.
Hong Kong is part of china now. (Score:2)