Hong Kongers fear a great firewall, TikTokers arrested in Egypt, spyware in Central America
In Hong Kong, forms of censorship that once seemed unthinkable now feel like a clear and present threat as Beijing tightens its grip on the city-state and its once-lively public sphere. Last week, I met a democracy activist who said Hong Kongers are worried that something like China’s so-called “Great Firewall” — the world’s most robust state-run internet censorship machine — could soon be erected to prevent free information flows in and out of Hong Kong. The question now is, “How do we minimize the damage if a firewall is to go up?”
This kind of control is present in the courts, but it’s playing out online too, with help from Big Tech. At the end of 2022, tech experts noticed that the open source code repository GitLab was being blocked on Apple’s Safari browser in Hong Kong. When they dug into it, they found that Apple was taking its censorship cues from none other than Tencent, the Shenzhen-based tech behemoth and owner of WeChat that has little choice but to follow state orders. This is nothing new coming from Apple — the company has a long history of deference to Beijing — but it is yet another setback for Hong Kongers. The Intercept has more details on the tech and politics of Apple’s blunder.
While headlines from mainland China remain focused on the Covid outbreak, I’m keeping my eyes peeled for news of how certain “White Paper” protesters, who demonstrated last year against zero-Covid policies, have been detained for spreading their messages online. My old colleague Oiwan Lam, an intrepid Hong Konger herself, has a terrific round-up of for Global Voices this week, in which she notes that many of those arrested are “either feminists or are connected to the Chinese feminist social circles.”
TikTok parodies are no laughing matter for Egyptian authorities. At least three Egyptian TikTokers are in pre-trial detention this week over a video in which they parodied a visit to a state prison. Even before I found this English-language summary of the video on Middle East Eye, I found it pretty engaging. These people are actual actors, and it shows. The fact that it resonated with their followers — it has 255K likes so far — should be little wonder, considering that an estimated 60,000 people are currently jailed in Egypt over political speech and activities. The three main actors in the video, Basma Hegazi, Mohamed Hosam and Ahmed Tarek, are now facing charges of spreading false news and belonging to a terror organization.