Last October 8th, van Mierlo (2019) posted a blog on the Information Strategy forum about the impact of technology on the Hong Kong protests. These protests, going on since June this year (BBC 2019), started out of fear of China limiting Hong Kong’s right as an autonomous state under in the Republic of China. With the help of live streams and encrypted messaging apps like Telegram, the protesters have tried to stay out of the hands of the police. Despite it being a political issue, now also commercial companies in the U.S. have faced the importance and impact of these protests and the increasing power of China.
It started with Daryl Morey, the coach of NBA basketball team the Houston Rockets. In his hotel room, he sent out a tweet backing the protesters in Hong Kong. Shortly after, two major Chinese sponsors backed out and Chinese state television refused to broadcast the NBA anymore (BBC 2019). Not long after, Blizzard, a major American game-developer, removed a professional player from the world cup of its digital card game Hearthstone and, in addition, took his won prize money. It did this after the player supported the Hong Kong protesters on a live stream (Cnet 2019) At last, Apple hit the news twice in one week. First, the tech giant banned the Taiwan flag emoji in Hong Kong (England 2019), and later it removed an app from its App Store that allowed the Hong Kong protesters to locate police offers via GPS (Nicas 2019).
All these situations show a remarkable trend: American companies feeling an increased pressure from the east side of the globe. Despite these companies being in their right to take the decisions they took, we must ask ourselves whether they also should take a responsible role in these matters. Capitalism is a powerful system, but when does it overrule morality?
BBC (2019) ‘The Hong Kong protests in 100 and 500 words’, visited on 10-10-2019, on https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-49317695
BBC (2019) ‘How one tweet derailed the NBA’s China game plan’, visited on 10-10-2019, on
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-49995985
England, R. (2019) ‘Apple removes Taiwan flag emoji from iOS in Hong Kong’, visited on 10-10-2019, on https://www.engadget.com/2019/10/09/apple-removes-taiwan-flag-emoji-from-ios-in-hong-kong/
Gonzalez, O. (2019) ‘Blizzard, Hearthstone, and the Hong Kong protests: here ‘s what you need to know’, visited on 10-10-2019, on https://www.cnet.com/news/blizzard-hearthstone-and-the-hong-kong-protests-heres-what-you-need-to-know/
Nicas, F. (2019) ‘Apple removes app that helps Hong Kong protesters track the police’, visited on 10-10-2019, on
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/09/technology/apple-hong-kong-app.html
Van Mierlo, L. (2019) ‘How the battle in Hong Kong moved from the streets to the apps’ visited on 10-10-2019, on https://digitalstrategy.rsm.nl//2019/10/08/how-the-battle-in-hong-kong-moved-from-the-streets-to-the-apps/
