Fleur Hoogendoorn

We are now entering the age of ‘global political awakening’—a revolution which encompasses political consciousness and political activism on a scale we have never seen before. Mass protests have broken out all over the world, in places like Chile, Lebanon, Catalonia, and Algeria. Initially sparked by concrete economic, cultural or political concerns over matters such as the rise in metro fares in Chile or Algerian President Bouteflika’s decision to run for a fifth term, these protests ignited a flame and turned towards much broader issues like extreme inequality in Chile, and a call for a new government and more democracy in Algeria, using tactics which increasingly rely on social media.

This world-wide expression of dissent was also prominent in Hong Kong, where protests developed in a similar fashion; following the path of frustration with one issue, which regarded the Extradition Bill in Hong Kong, this then became the last straw that turned larger parts of the population towards other grievances and mobilization. In its essence, the Extradition Bill legalized the extradition of suspects between Hong Kong and the Chinese Mainland, thereby increasing the risk of turning political dissidents over to the Mainland, where civil and political rights are not as protected as in Hong Kong. Since Hong Kong has a degree of autonomy, rights like freedom of speech and assembly are ensured here, but not so in China. Furthermore, under the ‘one country, two systems’ principle Hong Kong has its own government, yet Beijing has the ultimate power of interpretation of the law.

Therefore, when the Bill was introduced, the people of Hong saw it as an attempt of China to gain more influence over the region. After failure of the Hong Kong government to adequately respond to the crisis, and after serious transgressions of the police, mass protests spread across the city. Notably, like other mass protests world-wide, Hong Kong is an example of the weaponization of social media, both by protestors as well as by the (Chinese) government, and arguably its people. As researchers tend to focus more on how social media can be used in democratic regimes, authoritarian and hybrid regimes have been understudied and the latter has even been treated as a prolonged transition towards democracy, which is why I chose to focus on the role of (social) media in China and Hong Kong, analyzing an ongoing issue, as the protests have not subsided at the moment of writing. The remainder of this essay will attempt to answer how (social) media is employed today by the Chinese government, citizens from the mainland, and Hong Kong protesters, and to what extent censorship has influenced this usage. Firstly, I will argue that the Chinese government uses social media to spread misinformation to both its own people as well as to the outside world. This will be followed be a detailed account of the forms of social media used by the protesters and their strategies, before concluding that more research needs to be conducted on the connection between the Hong Kong protests and other leaderless protests, in addition to an investigation into the differences and similarities between the 2014 Umbrella Movement and the protests of today.

The extent of Chinese censorship and its relation to potential collective action

It is well-known that the Chinese government has a strict censorship policy. However, studying its effect on social media and eventually connecting it to the protests in Hong Kong is difficult. This is due to the fact that contrary to Western countries where social media are centralized in websites such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, Chinese social media is spread out over 1,400 social media services as a result of the Great Firewall of China, which blocks these foreign websites. To complicate matters, an extraordinary network of all government levels and hired censors ensure that a large majority of posts is censored within 24 hours, so researchers need to be on top of the posts. Fortunately, automated data collections enable researchers to obtain the data they need to discover which social media posts are more often subjected to censorship. According to King, Pan and Roberts, potential collective action is more likely to be censored than even criticism aimed at the regime itself, something which has been confirmed by others.

This theory is sound when it concerns the protests in Hong Kong, as it took 3 weeks before Chinese citizens heard a word about the situation in the region, and only after the Legislative Council had been occupied by a group of protesters, and police clashes with protesters. What’s more, when Chinese social media websites like Sina were finally flooded with news of the protests, Chinese citizens immediately stood with Beijing. Even stars like Liu Yifei, who plays the lead role in Disney’s Mulan, share their support the Hong Kong police on the Chinese form of Twiter named Weibo, following an incident where protesters beat up a Chinese state reporter. This shows the impact of China’s one-sided framing, manipulation and censorship of information on its people, since in reality, the protesters have generally remained peaceful with only small radicalized groups using force. The Hong Kong police, on the other hand, violated international human rights and standards on multiple accounts, as violence in the form of tear-gas and rubber bullets was used against tens of thousands of protesters, yet only a few were actually aggressive.

The spread of misinformation on social media

However, Chinese citizens do not get information about police misconduct or the true reason for the protests such as an independent inquiry into police conduct, the resignation of Carrie Lam, and wider calls for democratization. Instead, the Chinese government has framed the protests as riots supported by foreign forces trying to infiltrate Hong Kong and threatening national security. Unfortunately, the Chinese government goes even further than manipulation information. The National people’s Congress has an estimated 2 million employees in service who pretend on social media to be expressing the opinions of ordinary people. By defending the regime and inserting nationalistic symbols into social media, sensitive topics are avoided. The extent of this phenomenon is far-reaching, with as many as 448 million estimated social media comments made by the government, amounting to 1 out of every 178 posts on commercial social media sites. Therefore, it is not surprising that this machine of nationalistic propaganda has been so successful that indoctrinated Chinese citizens do not even demand information about sensitive topics, something which is reminiscent of the propaganda in the Soviet Union and Orwell’s novel 1984.

Moreover, Chinese citizens are not the only victim of manipulated information. The state has increasingly used its power to spread misinformation about the Hong Kong protests to the outside world. Portraying protesters as terrorists, the Chinese government has spread what Donald Trump would call “fake news” on social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and even on Google. Since these sites are banned in China as part of the Great Firewall, the only other option is an attempt at manipulating the international community and to get public opinion on their side. Accordingly, Twitter has removed more than 900 accounts which were used to “undermine the legitimacy and political positions of the protest movement,” and suspended up to 200,000 accounts before they became active. Additionally, Facebook has removed “7 pages, 5 Facebook accounts and 3 groups” and will remain vigilant. An example of a banned Facebook post uses highly emotive language to demonizes protesters by calling them the Cockroaches of Hong Kong. For outsiders, this spread of misinformation complicates the search for the truth. Luckily, China’s behavior is not without consequences, as the international community has denounced the spread of misinformation and several countries such as the UK, Germany and Australia have emphasized the people’s to peacefully protest and to exercise their freedom of speech. The United States even went so far as to pass legislation wherein support for the protesters is established, as Hong Kong’s special status could now be revoked due to human right violations of China. In retaliation, China now suspends visits from several American non-governmental groups, though this might just sway more countries towards support for the protesters.

Part 2: the Hong Kong protesters and lessons of the past

While the Chinese government has done everything within its power to distract attention from the protests before dismissing them as acts of terrorism and spreading misinformation worldwide, protesters have worked hard to counteract the government and learn from past mistakes. For instance, one lesson was the Umbrella Movement of 2014, which emerged after the Chinese government decided to pre-screen candidates for the election of Hong Kong’s chief executive. While the movement was ultimately unsuccessful, it set a precedent for later protesters, as it gave many of them experience with participating in demonstrations. To compare the 2014 protests with the ongoing protests, 2014 focused on occupying one place and leadership was centralized, unfortunately resulting in the capture of its main leaders. Furthermore, where 2014 saw the rise of WhatsApp and Facebook as tools for mobilization, this year’s protests have directed their attention towards multiple platforms and tools.

For example, alongside Facebook and WhatsApp, 2019 protesters share and distribute information on platforms like Instagram, Twitter, Apple Airdrop, Mapping apps, LIHKG and Telegram among other platforms, thus dispersing information over multiple sources and increasing the chance of attracting valuable international attention. These platforms each have their own intended purpose. Facebook, Instagram and Twitter are, for instance, mainly used for international networking, to generate public support by life-streaming the protests, sharing protest messages alongside digital art, and monitoring the extent of police violence. However, as Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp have a commercially driven algorithm, which makes it easier for foreign forces such as the Chinese government to infiltrate, as was evident in the aforementioned section of fake posts and accounts.

As a response to the widespread misinformation, the Hong Kong protesters have turned to more secure means of transmitting information and sharing tactics and ideas. One example finds itself in Apple Airdrop, which is used to share information and photos with Mainlanders who have no clue about the real reason behind the protests through Wi-Fi or Bluetooth, making it untraceable.

More central to the protests, is LIHKG, a forum in Chinese, which operates along the lines of Reddit and bases discussion on the popularity of posts, meaning that popular ideas are upvoted and seen first. Seeing as LIHKG is anonymous and, more importantly, protects its users by guaranteeing privacy, it is the perfect site for brainstorming about protests and strategizing for the next place to protest. This goes hand in hand with mapping apps, which as the name says, map whether districts and businesses are pro-democracy or supporting the government. This gives Hong Kong protesters the opportunity to boycott businesses which do not support their cause.

The inventive uses of Telegram and the fear of being identified

It is Telegram, however, which by far remains the most important form of communication. This form of social media acts in a similar vein as WhatsApp yet has adopted a high level of encryption and allows an unlimited number of users to join channels, which enables users to organize in masses. Another inventive manner of using Telegram is to provide aid to those in need due to the unrest. To illustrate, a considerable number of people who have either expressed their political stance in favor of the protests have lost their means of income. Others have participated in the demonstrations and are undergoing a prosecution process that may take up to several years but requires of them that they report to the police station and which limits their job chances. Since almost 6,000 people have been arrested since the protests began, there is a growing need for a safety-net. Fortunately, several channels on Telegram have started to provide services and aid in other forms, such as matching those who have been fired over their political stance and/or participation in the protests to find new employment. Other channels recognized the urgency for medicine against tear-gas and pepper spray related health problems, such as burning skin a sore throat and headaches. One of the most prominent of channels is run by a Chinese medicine student even provides the medication free of charge, relying on donations and asking patients to pay what they can.

Furthermore, Telegram allows protesters to warn each other in real time by sharing sightings of police officers and their locations, which allows the Protests to be as decentralized as possible and to “Be like water”; appear in one location and move to another before the police arrives at the scene. Regrettably, a few public group admins have been discovered and arrested by the police, forcing protesters to adopt a more careful approach which includes re-organizing information channels, unmasking police spies and hiding their own personal information. The latter is especially significant, as the Hong Kong police may use similar facial recognition technology as the Mainland. While this has not been confirmed yet, protesters are cautious and have taken to wearing masks, in addition to exchanging facial recognition on their mobile phones with a password to make it harder for the police to track them. Though the use of facial recognition technology is not verified yet, radio frequency identification scanners are a reality and NGO’s such as Keyboard Frontline have given protesters advice on how to best protect their identity, going so far as to wrap passports and bank cards in aluminium and buying a one-way ticket on public transport instead of an Octopus card which can be traced.

Conclusion and further research

Looking both at China’s spread of misinformation on social media and the way in which Hong Kong protesters have managed to take care of each other through Telegram channels, it appears that Mounk’s statement rings true; social media truly is a neutral force that can be used for both righteous and wrong purposes. As the situation stands today, the protesters have far from given up, as reports from yesterday describe people rallying outside of foreign consulates to generate support for their cause, and to drop off a petition concerning punishment for Chinese and Hong Kong officials for violating human rights and condemning what they saw as police brutality. This goes to show that the issues surrounding the protests are far from over and that it will take an incredible effort on both sides to come to a satisfying conclusion.

While this paper has attempted to answer how social media can be weaponized by both sides, there are several subjects that I feel deserve its own independent research. For example, there are remarkable similarities between the Umbrella Movement of 2014 and the protests of today, demonstrating how the Umbrella Movement inspired the 2019 protests and how protesters have transformed their strategies since then, thus a side by side comparison would be perfect in analyzing how the movement has evolved itself. Lastly, I believe that protests around the world in places like Chile, Lebanon, Catalonia, and Algeria have to an extent been inspired by Hong Kong, in particular its use of social media. Like Hong Kong, these movements were all leaderless and share tactics of organization and mobilization on social media. Therefore, research comparing these cases might provide more insight into mobilization tactics and its connection to social media.

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