The important thing distinction between this motion and former makes an attempt to take away content material is that it is a civil injunction, not like a legal prosecution—that means it’s, at the least legally talking, nearer to a copyright takedown request. In flip, a platform may arguably be much less prone to take a reputational hit so long as it removes the content material upon request.
Kwong believes this can certainly make platforms extra prone 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, could 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 Heart for Asian Legislation.
Lai additionally says now that the injunction is granted, it will likely 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 gained’t must show legal intent.
The chilling impact
Instantly after the injunction, human rights advocates known as on tech firms 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 observe,” says Freedom Home’s Wang. “Google and different tech firms ought to completely 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 firms will react. However proper after the injunction was granted, the track largely remained out there on most platforms, together with YouTube, iTunes, and Spotify, for Hong Kong customers, in accordance with the South China Morning Put up. On iTunes, the track even returned to the highest of the obtain rankings a number of hours after the injunction.
One key issue which will nonetheless decide company cooperation is how far the content material removing requests go. There’ll absolutely be extra movies of the track which might be uploaded to YouTube, to not point out impartial web sites internet hosting the movies and music for extra individuals to entry. Will the federal government go after every of them too?
The Hong Kong authorities has beforehand stated in court docket hearings that it solely seeks an area restriction of the net content material, that means content material will solely be inaccessible to customers bodily within the metropolis, which giant platforms like YouTube can accomplish that with out problem.
