WASHINGTON (US) – Facebook Inc, Google Inc and Twitter Inc on Monday announced that they were putting on hold processing government requests for user data in Hong Kong. This comes in the wake of Beijing imposing a new national security legislation on the city.
Facebook said it was halting reviews for all of its services “pending further assessment of the National Security Law.”
Google, a unit of Alphabet Inc, and Twitter said they suspended their reviews of data requests from Hong Kong authorities soon after the new law kicked in. Twitter pointed to “grave concerns” about the implications of the law.
Google made it clear that it would review requests of Hong Kong authorities for removing user-generated content.
Often, social networking sites enforce local curbs to posts that flout local laws. In the second half of 2019, Facebook restricted 394 posts in Hong Kong while it was eight in the first half, according to a transparency report.
In Hong Kong, tech firms have operated freely and the internet access in the financial hub has been unaffected by the firewall in mainland China where Google, Twitter and Facebook have been blocked.
(Photos syndicated via Reuters)
This story has been edited by BH staff and is published from a syndicated field