Google, Facebook & Twitter Threaten To Pull Services In Hong Kong Over "Vague" Doxxing Law
Google, Facebook & Twitter Threaten To Pull Services In Hong Kong Over "Vague" Doxxing Law
BY TYLER DURDEN MONDAY, JUL 05, 2021 - 09:45 PM
The big three internet and social media companies Facebook,
Twitter and Google have warned the Hong Kong government that they could
quit the city altogether if new controversial data protection laws ostensibly
to "combat doxxing" are pushed through. The Silicon
Valley giants reportedly made their stance known "privately"
according to reporting in The Wall Street Journal Monday.
Without doubt the new proposed legal amendments to existing data
protection laws are closely related to the pro-China crackdown which has for
many months utterly stifled the kind of large-scale pro-independence protests
which defined much of 2019. Facebook, Twitter and Google's anger over the
possible beefed-up law centers on the part that would make
them liable for revealing individuals' private information online.
Also in the cross-hairs is Amazon.
Doxxing
was widely viewed as a favored tactic of young anti-China
activists, which reportedly targeted pro-mainland HK officials
and entities while sometimes violent protests raged in the streets. The
amendments were first proposed in May by Hong Kong’s Constitutional and
Mainland Affairs Bureau and would also impose steep penalties on individuals
caught doxxing, including up to five years in prison and a fine of up to 1
million Hong Kong dollars (or over $120,000).
The US companies are also alarmed at how
vague the definition of doxxing might be defined by HK authorities at
a moment the 'national security law' continues to be used as a broad, blunt
instrument for pursuing activists and dissidents. At this point, a number of
the most prominent protest leaders are either in jail or in exile, with Joshua
Wong, Agnes Chow and Jimmy Lai currently serving prison sentences related to
things like the "anti-mask" law and unauthorized assembly.
The tech giants worry their own local employees and system
administrators would inevitably be subject to criminal
charges based merely on the actions of random individual
users, including what might be viewed in the West as political free speech, but
which Hong Kong and its Beijing backers would view as banned speech. Google's Hong
Kong Web site is considered to be much less censored when compared to mainland
China's filters designed to prevent access to government-critical information
and sources.
The previously undisclosed June 25 letter from an industry group
through which Facebook, Twitter, and Google raised their alarm said bluntly that—
"The
only way to avoid these sanctions for technology companies would be to refrain
from investing and offering the services in Hong Kong..."
The letter calls the proposed penalties "completely disproportionate and unnecessary response" that will cast a broad enough legal net that will no doubt punish "innocent acts of sharing information online," according to select quotes unveiled for the first time in WSJ.
Though it remains to be seen whether they would go through with this 'nuclear
option' - as Google and Facebook have elsewhere threatened to - for example in
Australia for very different reasons (related to advertising revenue and new
government efforts to ensure greater reward for local news sources).
The city' some 7.5 million population doesn't make it a
huge user-base compared to much of the rest of the US companies' global
presence; however, it's unthinkable to many that such a central international
financial hub could be without Google or Twitter, for example. It would also
certainly negatively impact any future protests movements or activists' ability
to rapidly share information, as the law will also extend to Telegram, or any
alternative platforms.
Paul Haswell of Hong Kong-based law firm Pinsent Masons
summarized the slippery slope scenario easily foreseeable if the law goes into
effect: "A broad reading of the rules could suggest that even
an unflattering photo of a person taken in public, or of a police officer’s
face on the basis that this would constitute personal data,
could run afoul of the proposed amendments if posted with malice or an
intention to cause harm, he said," according to WSJ.
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