Web firms ‘complied with protest song injunction’
Internet service providers have complied with an injunction order against a popular protest song from the 2019 social unrest, Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu said, even though different versions of it are still readily available on many online platforms.
“We have noted that there is no link shown on any local platform relating to the song, and also Google search doesn’t show any link to the song in question either,” Lee said yesterday, referring to “Glory to Hong Kong”.
“We will continue to monitor the situation to see whether there is any non-compliance with the court order.”
Lee, speaking ahead of the weekly meeting of the city’s key decision-making Executive Council, said the government would notify relevant platforms about the court order if it noticed any non-compliance.
The government later clarified that Lee was referring only to links specified in the injunction and Google search in Hong Kong.
The Court of Appeal banned the circulation of “Glory to Hong Kong” earlier this month on the grounds that it had become a “weapon” that could be used to arouse anti-government and separatist sentiment.
The court document listed YouTube videos of 32 versions of the protest song that could be found in breach of the intended injunction, including instrumental covers, as well as those sung in Mandarin, English, German, Dutch, Japanese and Korean.
The song has mistakenly been played instead of the national anthem “March of the Volunteers” at several major sports events in recent years.
Last Wednesday, United States-based video-streaming giant YouTube said it had complied with the order by blocking access to 32 clips for viewers in the city.
But a Post check yesterday still found many Google search results for the song, with different versions on YouTube. At least 30 versions, which were uploaded with the hashtag “back up”, have been uploaded since the injunction was issued.
The song remains available on music streaming platforms such as Spotify and Apple Music, and appears as the top results when searching for “Hong Kong national anthem” on Google and YouTube.
Asked if authorities had any plans to request other online platforms to comply with the injunction, Lee merely said the government would monitor the situation and that he believed operators in general worked within the law.
The injunction, which ruled in favour of the government, bans people from “broadcasting, performing, printing, publishing, selling, offering for sale, distributing, disseminating, displaying or reproducing [the song] in any way” with the intention to incite others to separate Hong Kong from the rest of the country, commit a seditious act or insult the national anthem, “March of the Volunteers”.
It also prohibits anyone from playing the song in a way likely to cause it “to be mistaken as the national anthem insofar as [Hong Kong] is concerned” or suggest the city “is an independent state and has a national anthem of her own”.