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A Hong Kong choose stated on Friday that he would rule subsequent week on a authorities request to ban a well-liked pro-democracy music from the web, in a case that might power Google and different corporations to limit entry to the music.
At concern is “Glory to Hong Kong,” which was the anthem of the 2019 protests that ended with Beijing taking tighter management over Hong Kong. The authorities argue that the music is an insult to China’s nationwide anthem and will make individuals imagine that Hong Kong is an impartial nation. The federal government has banned it from faculties and lashed out when it was performed, apparently by mistake, at sports activities competitions.
On Friday Decide Anthony Chan, after listening to three hours of authorized arguments, stated he would concern his determination subsequent Friday. The federal government is in search of an injunction to ban the publication or distribution on-line of “Glory to Hong Kong.” Anybody violating the injunction may face jail for contempt of court docket.
Tech corporations are watching the case intently as a result of it has raised the specter of extra authorities management of on-line speech in Hong Kong.
“The enterprise neighborhood ought to take discover — the courts received’t be capable of defend them so long as the Hong Kong authorities can plausibly declare that nationwide safety pursuits are in play,” stated Thomas E. Kellogg, the chief director of the Middle for Asian Regulation at Georgetown College.
Google has resisted the federal government’s public requests that “Glory to Hong Kong” not present up in search outcomes or on its sibling service, YouTube. However that might change if a court docket ordered it to abide by the request. Like most tech corporations, Google has a coverage of eradicating or limiting entry to materials that’s deemed unlawful by a court docket in sure international locations or locations.
Google, which is owned by Alphabet, stated it could not touch upon the case, as did Meta, the guardian firm of Fb. Google and Fb established places of work in Hong Kong over a decade in the past, and in the present day every has as much as a number of hundred staff within the metropolis. Apple didn’t reply to requests for remark.
The authorities in Hong Kong have more and more cracked down on what they contemplate dissent and threats to nationwide safety, focusing on people with arrests, bounties and prosecution.
On the similar time, the federal government is working to move laws by early subsequent yr that may goal what it thought-about subversive content material and shut “web loopholes,” a transfer that might have extra far-reaching penalties and codify the ban into legislation.
Hong Kong has lengthy attracted international companies in search of entry and proximity to China, away from its censorship controls. It has been the one Chinese language territory with unfettered entry to providers equivalent to Google and Fb, which pulled out of China years in the past.
When Google refused a request to take away the music in December, Hong Kong’s safety chief known as the corporate’s determination “unthinkable.”
In court docket on Friday, Benjamin Yu, a lawyer for the federal government arguing why the music ought to be banned, stated it had been used to “fire up feelings.” He pointed to the arrest of a harmonica participant who had performed the music outdoors the British Consulate when mourning the loss of life of Queen Elizabeth II final yr.
Abraham Chan, a lawyer performing as buddy of the court docket to current opposing arguments, stated banning the music due to nationwide safety may disrupt the free movement of data.
“You’ll be able to’t merely say, ‘Don’t fear concerning the chilling results,’” he stated.
The Hong Kong authorities have arrested greater than 250 individuals beneath an expansive nationwide safety legislation that Beijing imposed on the town in 2020, geared toward stamping out opposition to the ruling Communist Get together.
In distinction to “slow-grinding” legal instances in opposition to people, an injunction may give the federal government a fast path to limiting content material on on-line platforms, stated Kevin Yam, a authorized researcher and former Hong Kong lawyer based mostly in Melbourne.
No firm or particular person was named as a direct defendant within the authorities’s injunction software, which included 32 hyperlinks to “Glory to Hong Kong” on YouTube.
However many worry {that a} court docket injunction in opposition to “Glory to Hong Kong” might be a step towards extra official management over the web in Hong Kong, the place the web stays principally freed from censorship regardless of Beijing’s heavier hand in governing the territory.
American tech corporations like Fb and Twitter had been blocked from mainland China in 2009. A yr later, Google shut down its China providers and rerouted customers to its search engine in Hong Kong, then a bastion of political freedom on Chinese language soil.
Because the nationwide safety legislation was put in place, requests to tech corporations by the Hong Kong authorities to take away content material on the web have soared.
Chang Che contributed reporting from Seoul.
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