Hong Kong security chief Chris Tang Ping-keung vowed to fully support further regulations on fake news, as some media outlets had played the inflammatory role in the past few years in instigating social conflicts.
Citing Apple Daily which closed down at the end of last year, the security chief stressed in an interview with the China News Service on Sunday that the now-defunct infamous tabloid poisoned the mindset of Hong Kong residents, especially misled the youth to have a wrong perception about the nation or government.
Tang said that the biggest achievement of the Security Bureau of the HKSAR in 2021 was able to safeguard national security, as some anti-China rioters have been put in jail.
“We can see the society restored peace and the instigators have been arrested. What impressed me the most was the shutdown of Apple Daily, which poisoned the mindset of Hong Kong residents, particularly misled the Hong Kong youth, so the shutdown will make our society better, and more democratic,” Tang was quoted as saying in the report.
Reflecting on what happened in 2019, Tang said the social turmoil was actually a color revolution. External forces endangering national security used fake news to instigate the confrontation between different groups, incited local residents to attack the HKSAR government and law enforcement authorities. “We must take targeted measures against fake news, and the Home Affairs Bureau is studying on legislation or other measures in regulating fake news, which I fully support,” the senior official said.
Further regulation on anti-China media outlets which have been used as a political tool in attacking the central government and local government in the name of free press has been an overwhelming call by local lawmakers and observers. As the fate of anti-China news sites like Stand News and Citizen News, experts said their closure reflects that these sites, which played the inflammatory role in the past, failed to adapt to the new situation in Hong Kong.
The Stand News editor-in-chief is brought into a vehicle on December 29, 2021 in Hong Kong, China.Photo: VCG
Hong Kong’s online news site Citizen News announced on Sunday night that it will stop operating from January 4, a decision which came three days after the shutdown of the Stand News.
Some observers say there’s no room now for anti-govt media serving as a political tool to continue surviving in Hong Kong under the national security law for Hong Kong and the electoral reform, which all unveiled a new page for the city.
Caspar Tsui Ying-wai, Secretary for Home Affairs, said on Monday that the Basic Law guarantees freedom of the press, as long as media staff abide by the law. Meanwhile, authorities are considering more regulation against fake news, which has a huge ill impact on the public. Other countries have similar laws in regulating the media, as it’s important to guarantee freedom of speech as well as the correctness of the information.
To coordinate with some Western media-led criticism on the shutdown of these local sites, which they called as the latest example of “deteriorating freedom in Hong Kong,” some absconded anti-China rioters such as Nathan Law Kwun-chung and Ted Hui Chi-fung have continued slandering local governance and new changes in the Hong Kong society. Tang told Chinese media that those rioters are “like pets for external forces,” as long as they become invaluable to those forces, they will be abandoned.
“No matter how long it takes, and no matter how hard it is, we’ll hold those rioters accountable in accordance with the law,” he said.
Commissioner of Police of the HKSAR government Chris Tang Ping-keung gives an interview to Xinhua in south China’s Hong Kong on Jan. 28, 2021.Photo:Xinhua
