US tech giants Facebook Inc, Alphabet Inc’s Google and Twitter Inc. have privately warned the Hong Kong government that they could stop offering their services in the city if authorities proceed with planned changes to data-protection laws, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday, citing a letter.
The laws could make the tech companies liable for the malicious sharing of individuals’ information online, the newspaper added.
A letter sent by an industry group that includes the Internet firms said companies are concerned that the planned rules to address “doxing” could put their staff at risk of criminal investigations or prosecutions related to what the firms’ users post online, Journal reported.
Doxing is an act of revealing people’s personal information such as real name, home address or workplace online without the user’s permission.
Facebook, Google and Twitter did not immediately respond to Reuters’ requests for a comment.
Hong Kong’s Constitutional and Mainland Affairs Bureau in May proposed amendments to the city’s data-protection laws that it said were needed to combat doxing, a practice that was prevalent during 2019 protests in the city, the newspaper said.
According to the newspaper, the letter dated June 25 was sent by Singapore-based Asia Internet Coalition.
“The only way to avoid these sanctions for technology companies would be to refrain from investing and offering the services in Hong Kong,” the Journal reported, quoting the letter.
Facebook, Google, Twitter say could quit Hong Kong over proposed data laws
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Facebook, Google, Twitter say could quit Hong Kong over proposed data laws
- Social media giants to possibly halt their services in Honk Kong over changes to data-protection laws in the country.
China’s national security agency in Hong Kong summons international media representatives
HONG KONG: China’s national security agency in Hong Kong summoned international media representatives for a “regulatory talk” on Saturday, saying some had spread false information and smeared the government in recent reports on a deadly fire and upcoming legislative elections.
Senior journalists from several major outlets operating in the city, including AFP, were summoned to the meeting by the Office for Safeguarding National Security (OSNS), which was opened in 2020 following Beijing’s imposition of a wide-ranging national security law on the city.
Through the OSNS, Beijing’s security agents operate openly in Hong Kong, with powers to investigate and prosecute national security crimes.
“Recently, some foreign media reports on Hong Kong have disregarded facts, spread false information, distorted and smeared the government’s disaster relief and aftermath work, attacked and interfered with the Legislative Council election, (and) provoked social division and confrontation,” an OSNS statement posted online shortly after the meeting said.
At the meeting, an official who did not give his name read out a similar statement to media representatives.
He did not give specific examples of coverage that the OSNS had taken issue with, and did not take questions.
The online OSNS statement urged journalists to “not cross the legal red line.”
“The Office will not tolerate the actions of all anti-China and trouble-making elements in Hong Kong, and ‘don’t say we didn’t warn you’,” it read.
For the past week and a half, news coverage in Hong Kong has been dominated by a deadly blaze on a residential estate which killed at least 159 people.
Authorities have warned against crimes that “exploit the tragedy” and have reportedly arrested at least three people for sedition in the fire’s aftermath.
Dissent in Hong Kong has been all but quashed since Beijing brought in the national security law, after huge and sometimes violent protests in 2019.
Hong Kong’s electoral system was revamped in 2021 to ensure that only “patriots” could hold office, and the upcoming poll on Sunday will select a second batch of lawmakers under those rules.
