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Millions Losing Access to Internet
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Millions losing access to internet [news.com.au]:
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Millions of people look set to lose access to the free and open internet as China’s control over Hong Kong increases.
A new law was ushered in by Beijing last month that gave China sweeping powers over opposition against itself, both within its borders and outside of them, which could put people in jail for years if they commit vaguely defined political crimes.
The controversial national security law was used to make arrests within hours.
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On Tuesday, the Australian government updated its travel advice for the region [news.com.au], warning us not to travel to China due to the risk of “arbitrary detention”.
It was feared Hong Kong would soon fall behind China’s “Great Firewall” and be subject to the tight controls over access to information enforced by the government there.
Charles Mok, a Hong Kong legislator working to “uphold the core values of Hong Kong, of which include democracy, liberty, human rights, rule of law and integrity”, said that’s already happening.
We are already behind the de facto firewall, as of midnight this morning when the law came into effect, barely two hours after it was announced. Thank you very much. https://t.co/ctN9keDz8U [t.co]
— Charles Mok 莫乃光 (@charlesmok) July 7, 2020 [twitter.com]
Hong Kong police now have sweeping powers to order social media platforms and publishers to remove content, as well as ban the platforms altogether.
Undefined “exceptional circumstances” also give police the right to seize and search electronic devices.
A number of tech companies including Google, Facebook, Twitter, Microsoft and Zoom have said they’re pausing the review of law enforcement requests for data or stopping it altogether while they assess the impact of the new law.
Under fire TikTok said it would stop operating in the region, [news.com.au] where it had few users.
If the companies don’t comply it’s expected they’ll be banned.
Google already pulled out of China over requests from its government to censor information in searches, but its website and services had previously been accessible in Hong Kong.
Tech companies and many others have been balancing a desire to uphold support for Hong Kong independence during recent protests with the desire to avoid annoying the Chinese government and losing access to its market of 1.4 billion, increasingly upwardly mobile citizens.
The US National Basketball Association and the television show South Park have found themselves in the mix in the past year.
Apple also faced some brief scrutiny when it removed an app [news.com.au] being used by Hong Kong protesters to avoid police.
Hong Kong chief executive Carrie Lam (often criticised as a puppet of Beijing) defended the new laws as “relatively mild”.
