The important thing distinction between this motion and former makes an attempt to take away content material is that this can be a civil injunction, not like a legal prosecution—which means it’s, at the least legally talking, nearer to a copyright takedown request. In flip, a platform might arguably be much less more likely to take a reputational hit so long as it removes the content material upon request.
Kwong believes this may certainly make platforms extra more likely to cooperate and there have already been fairly clear indicators to that impact. In a single listening to in December, the federal government was requested by the court docket to seek the advice of on-line platforms for the feasibility of the injunction. The ultimate judgment this week says that whereas the platforms “haven’t taken half in these proceedings, they’ve indicated that they’re able to accede to the Authorities’s request if there’s a court docket order.”
“The precise targets on this case, primarily the tech giants, might have much less hesitation to adjust to a civil court docket order than a nationwide safety order as a result of if it is the latter, they might additionally face backfire from the US,” says Eric Yan-Ho Lai, a analysis fellow at Georgetown Middle for Asian Regulation.
Lai additionally says now that the injunction is granted, will probably be simpler to prosecute a person based mostly on violating a civil injunction than prosecuting somebody based mostly on legal offenses, as a result of now the federal government received’t have to show legal intent.
The chilling impact
Instantly after the injunction, human rights advocates referred to as on tech corporations to stay dedicated to their values. “Corporations like Google and Apple have repeatedly claimed that they stand by the common proper to freedom of expression. They need to put their beliefs into follow,” says Freedom Home’s Wang. “Google and different tech corporations ought to totally doc authorities calls for, and publish detailed transparency reviews on content material takedowns, each for these initiated by the authorities and people achieved by the businesses themselves.”
With out making their plans clear, it’s too early to know simply how tech corporations will react. However proper after the injunction was granted, the tune largely remained accessible on most platforms, together with YouTube, iTunes, and Spotify, for Hong Kong customers, based on the South China Morning Put up. On iTunes, the tune even returned to the highest of the obtain rankings a couple of hours after the injunction.
One key issue that will nonetheless decide company cooperation is how far the content material removing requests go. There’ll certainly be extra movies of the tune which are uploaded to YouTube, to not point out impartial web sites internet hosting the movies and music for extra folks to entry. Will the federal government go after every of them too?
The Hong Kong authorities has beforehand mentioned in court docket hearings that it solely seeks an area restriction of the web content material, which means content material will solely be inaccessible to customers bodily within the metropolis, which giant platforms like YouTube can achieve this with out issue.
