In Hong Kong, a Proxy Battle Over Internet Freedom Begins

As Hong Kong grapples with a draconian new security law, the tiny territory is emerging as the front line in a global fight between the United States and China over censorship, surveillance and the future of the internet.

Long a bastion of online freedom on the digital border of China’s tightly managed internet, Hong Kong’s uneasy status changed radically in just a week. The new law mandates police censorship and covert digital surveillance, rules that can be applied to online speech across the world.

To continue reading this New York Times report, go to:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/07/business/hong-kong-security-law-tech.html

Also see:

Internet Powers Collide in Hong Kong: Tech giants suspend handing over information to Hong Kong, setting up a collision with China.
Here we are again, facing a collision between America’s online superpowers and China.

My colleague Paul Mozur wrote about Facebook, Google, Facebook-owned WhatsApp, Twitter and some other digital companies’ saying they would temporarily stop handing over people’s information when the Hong Kong authorities ask for it.

The companies were responding to a vaguely worded new law that civil liberties advocates worry would extend China’s internet censorship and digital surveillance to Hong Kong, which has long been a bastion of online freedom. If companies go along with the new law, the fear is that someone in Hong Kong could be jailed for a tweet. If they don’t comply, their employees could go to jail.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/07/technology/internet-powers-hong-kong.html

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