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Friday, November 15, 2019, 01:31
HK needs a law to stem the spread of fake news
By Raymond Li
Friday, November 15, 2019, 01:31 By Raymond Li

King Canute is known for his arrogance while standing on the banks of the River Crouch in 1035, trying to turn back the tides in vain. In the 21st century, heralded by the information explosion on social media platforms, attempts to resist its tide of power and impact could be viewed in a similar vein. In Hong Kong, with the unabated and increasingly violent anti-government protests sprinkled with running battles, vandalism and scuffles in and around many districts entering their 23rd week, the underlying fury among the radical protesters could be attributed to the tides of free-flowing false news and messages on online platforms and private chat groups that are inciting public hatred of the police and our administration. In view of the spiraling violence rampaging Hong Kong, a relevant anti-fake-news law is long overdue to fill the legal vacuum before Hong Kong slips into a deeper political abyss. 

On Oct 31, the High Court, upon the application filed by the secretary for justice, granted an injunction order to restrain people from “willfully disseminating, circulating, publishing or republishing” or assisting, causing, counseling, procuring, instigating, inciting, aiding, abating or authorizing others to publish or republish any material online, including but not limited to LIHKG (Hong Kong equivalent of Reddit) and Telegram, that promotes or incites the use or threat of violence, intended or likely to cause unlawful bodily injury to a person or property damage, until a formal hearing on Friday (today). The court order is highly necessary to get a grip on the five-month-long protest chaos, though not sufficient in the sense that the fake news and misinformation with ulterior motive to discredit the police are considered powder kegs, resulting in the current widespread and escalating violence in Hong Kong.

It (the anti-fake-news law) ensures how free speech and expression could be better exercised, as only the “rotten apples” of fake news and falsehoods against the public interests, but not any individuals’ viewpoints or opinions,will be outlawed

According to PolitiFact, fake news is “made-up stuff, masterfully manipulated to look like credible journalistic reports that are easily spread online to large audiences”. Although such disinformation has always existed, the sprouting of social media and messaging apps, which have already become the main source of news, has made it easier to spread falsehoods. Similarly, fake news and misinformation have been running rampant in Hong Kong, as there have been outlandish allegations, swirling in social media and private chat groups, of rape and murder committed by police against the protesters. In the absence of an ounce of truth, fact and evidence, such unfounded rumors have been astonishingly believed by many.

For example, in a suicide case of a 15-year-old girl found off the shore of Tseung Kwan O, the mother of the girl who committed suicide has discredited such rumors of foul play, and confirmed in a television program that her daughter suffered from mental illness and killed herself. Moreover, security video footage taken from and released by the school where the girl was last seen before her death do not show any signs of her being murdered despite the speculative allegations online. Nevertheless, the clarifications seemed to fail to dissipate the unfounded rumors of murder by the police, with the police also being associated with other suicide cases, again without any evidence in support of their involvement. This demonstrates how fake news and rumors are deployed as “online bombs”, fueling the already intense public sentiments against the police and our administration as a whole. 

In nipping the anti-government protesters’ violence in the bud, the court’s interim ban on publication of the use or inciting others with the use of violence, although it is better than nothing, exposes the lack of legal tools to contain the violence stemming from the distrust and misdirection of the public by the omnipresence of fake news and misinformation with a view to defaming the police and destabilizing our society. In the short term, the interim ban on the scope of online materials should be expanded to include the fake news and misinformation, with the main objective causing or inciting others to cause social unrest in Hong Kong; in the long term, our government should actively explore the possibility of enacting a sui generis anti-fake news law in Hong Kong, considering that similar legislation is already in place in many countries, including Singapore, Germany and France. 

Considering the similar socioeconomic structures and the same common law legal systems in Hong Kong and Singapore, our administration can take a leaf from the Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Bill, which came into force this October in the Lion City, which bans the spread of what the government perceives as false statements against the public interest and the use of fake accounts or bots to spread fake news. A person found guilty of these offenses could be heavily fined and/or imprisoned up to five years and 10 years respectively. More importantly, the law could be applied to news websites and closed private platforms such as chat groups and social media groups, including apps with end-to-end encryption, which also could face penalties for their noncompliance with orders to remove content or post corrections. 

Despite a flurry of critics arguing that similar anti-fake news law, if introduced in Hong Kong, may “stifle the freedom of speech and expression”, one must acknowledge firstly that freedom of expression and speech is never absolute and always subject to the greater need to protect public safety and national security. Secondly, the civil right of free speech has to be distinguished from the freedom to spread fake news and falsehoods, and the anti-fake-news law only empowers the government to act swiftly and forcefully to halt the viral spread of falsehood. In other words, the law not only doesn’t have any objective or effect deterring any citizens from exercising their freedom of speech and expression; more importantly, it ensures how free speech and expression could be better exercised, as only the “rotten apples” of fake news and falsehoods against the public interests, but not any individuals’ viewpoints or opinions, will be outlawed. 

In rebutting the worries that the law would be a death knell to mushrooming tech enterprises and their operating social media platforms and press freedom, it is important to acknowledge that tech giants like Facebook, Twitter and Google all have their Asia headquarters in Singapore. In addition, as any responsible media, our “Fourth Estate” should not have any concern of the impact of the anti-fake-news law on their press freedoms. After all, we trust that our journalistic media would hold fast its ethics to ensure the authenticity of its news and information so reported.

Against the backdrop of the intense political controversy and division embroiling Hong Kong, it is politically vital for our government to exhaust all legal means to pull the plug on all fake news, falsehoods and rumors, lest the continuing spread of which will only push Hong Kong to the precipice of political apocalypse with unfolding bloodshed and violence, the last thing any Hong Kong people would wish to see, in the general interest of Hong Kong. 

The author is a Hong Kong practicing solicitor, chairman of Y Legalites, and vice-chairman of the Hong Kong KOL Project. The views expressed in this piece are his own, and do not reflect the views of the law firm which he works.

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