How social media is shaping what people know — and don't know — about the Hong Kong protests
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Social media has played an important role in Hong Kong’s anti-government protests over the past few days with protesters planning their moves via apps and mainland China users apparently blocked from learning about the unrest on multiple platforms.
Hundreds of thousands have taken to the streets since Sunday, protesting a proposed government law to allow extraditions to mainland China . Opponents of the bill are worried about the growing influence of Beijing on Hong Kong, and the potential erosion of the partly autonomous city’s rule of law .
A number of messaging services including Telegram and Facebook -owned WhatsApp were being used by protesters to organize rallies.
The large-scale use of Telegram was revealed when one administrator of a 30,000 strong group on the platform was arrested, according to the South China Morning Post, citing his lawyers. The individual, Ivan Ip, was accused of conspiracy to commit a public nuisance. CNBC has reached out to Ip’s lawyers but has yet to receive a response.
Telegram and WhatsApp are encrypted and in theory should not allow third-parties to snoop on conversations.
Several other major social media platforms were used to broadcast what was going on the ground. There was an hour-long live stream on Twitter -owned service Periscope. Users also posted to their Instagram Stories. Even Twitch, a platform that hosts video gaming-related live streams, had content about the Hong Kong protests .
In Hong Kong, services like Google , Twitter, Facebook and Instagram are all freely available but are blocked in mainland China by the country’s so-called Great Firewall.
That means people in mainland China are subjected to government controls on the information they can access.
On microblogging site Weibo, the term “let’s go Hong Kong” was blocked with the platform citing “relevant laws, regulations and policies” as the reason for not showing search results. The same search query on Tencent’s popular messaging app WeChat did not yield any results related to the protests.
Pak Yiu, a video journalist in China for news service AFP, posted a screenshot of him sending an image of the Hong Kong protests to a friend. His friend, however, said they could not see the image, potentially demonstrating how WeChat is blocking content related to the protests.
On Wednesday, messaging service Telegram said it had suffered what’s known as a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack. This is when a number of computers try to overload servers of a company with bogus requests. The result is that the service could stop working or it may slow down considerably.
Pavel Durov, CEO of Telegram, said that the IP addresses behind the attack were coming mainly from China and it coincided with the Hong Kong protests.
I think that Hong Kong is in for a rude awakening... and it's not even near dawn.
Both they and Taiwan are living on a knifes edge with respect to China.
I think Taiwan's case to remain free of mainland China is a lot stronger than Hong Kong's.
Point taken Buzz.
England gave Hong Kong back to mainland China a number of years ago. They were obligated to do so. It should be no surprise to anyone that since Hong Kong is incorporated back into mainland China that mainland China's laws would eventually be imposed upon it. When the colonies became part of the USA, many United Empire Loyalists were unhappy about the change, and left for Canada. Those who remained may have complained, but had to accept that American law thenceforth governed them. I see little difference in the situations.
Buzz,
Huge difference. England didn't give up the USA. We went to war to win our independence. The English tried to even take us back in the war of 1812. But in Hong Kong, they were very happy with part of the commonwealth and were given all the freedoms of that commonwealth. Then they were handed over to a dictatorship. Also, this arrangement was made 100 years ago, before China was communist. The people of Hong Kong were supposed to be able to keep their freedoms, and that is now being taken away not too slowly. I feel bad for those people.
The 100 year agreement was well known. It's not as if nobody knew what would happen when the time came to give back. I don't know the terms of the agreement as to preserving their freedoms, but surely, taking into consideration China's treatment of Tibet and attitude towards Taiwan would be a pretty visible hint of what would happen.
those poor bastards were handed over to a " socialist dictatorship.
aka: socialist-republic which is governed by the communist party
Funny how none of your links say anything about "socialist dictatorship", you invented that yourself because the two terms are completely incongruous.
Just more evidence many people have no clue as to what actual socialism is. We need a much better public education system, then these kinds of laughable misunderstandings would likely happen far less.
nothing funny about it. I used those words not the links... LOL
china is a socialist republic and... wait for it...china is a dictatorship
also note: that china is run by the communist party.
and guess what? nothing about any of that is even debatable. it is a known fact.
from venezuela, to china, and hong kong, every country socialists touch - eventually turns to crap
why? socialism and communism are the two ends of the same piece of shit.
You really ought to stop making stuff up that just shows how far off base your argument is.
You linked: aka: socialist-republic which is governed by the communist party but that's not what the link says. No where does it call China a "socialist-Republic". You are not only misrepresenting "socialism", you're lying about it which is just getting sad to watch.
Here's a quick primer you can study which might help you make coherent factual statements.
Socialism: noun - a political and economic theory of social organization which advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole
Communism: noun - a political theory derived from Karl Marx, advocating class war and leading to a society in which all property is publicly owned and each person works and is paid according to their abilities and needs.
Dictatorship - noun - government by a dictator.
Fascism: noun - a political philosophy, movement, or regime (such as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition.
Republic: noun - a state in which supreme power is held by the people and their elected representatives, and which has an elected or nominated president rather than a monarch.
China is a communist republic. You can see by the very definitions a "socialist-dictatorship" doesn't make any sense.
yes it does on right sidebar near the contents
use CTRL / F search: socialist republic
you will find the text and link to this page
I get that you do not want the word socialism attached to another dictator... but its too late for that
now move along...
Absolutely false in China. People buy, sell and own their own homes and farms, and besides, China is becoming extremely capitalistic - otherwise how do you explain self-made people like Jack Ma? One of my wife's brothers has just bought the title to a new home for the equivalent of US$500,000, and her other brother occupies what has been the family farm for generations. Oh, and the only class war here I've become aware of is when the classes in the private high school where I taught in Zhengzhou fought a snowball fight.
China is an interesting modern example of state capitalism. ( Actually a mix of several -isms including private sector capitalism, but you really should investigate the state capitalism factor of China. )
If you see 'socialism' everywhere you turn, you simply do not understand what you are seeing.
When I first read the title, I thought it was going to just end with "How Social Media is Shaping What People Know - And Don't Know". Hong Kong is just an example. As I've said before, I think Mark Zuckerberg could be the most dangerous person in the world.
Sadly their social media will probably be gone next.
It must be hard watching your freedoms taken away.
You might notice that I'm still here communicating on NT - notwithstanding many comments have been made by members, sometimes by me, that the rampant paranoia as I've seen about China would have blocked long ago. In the movie Oceans 11 (the Clooney remake), it was said that "someone is always watching", so isn't it amazing that I'm still around?
Maybe this discussion can expand to being more universal to show that what is happening in Hong Kong may not be much different from what is happening around the world. i.e. just remove the reference to Hong Kong and discuss THIS:
"How Social Media is Shaping What People Know - And Don't Know"
"How Social Media is Shaping What People Know - And Don't Know"
And in my opinion, it's happening as much in the USA as anywhere else.