Hong Kong leader says Google has ‘moral obligation’ to remove protest song

Hong Kong‘s leader John Lee has pushed back against Google’s refusal to remove a protest song from the searches of China’s national anthem as the row over pro-democracy “Glory to Hong Kong” widened.

On Tuesday, Mr Lee, Hong Kong’s chief executive, said the Alphabet Inc-owned platform has “a moral obligation” to prominently feature the correct national anthem in search results instead of protest song.

His comments followed the Chinese leadership was infuriated after several big sporting events such as a rugby tournament in South Korea and powerlifting event in Dubai played the pro-democracy protest song as the city’s anthem instead of the Chinese anthem “March of the Volunteers”.

“If any company is in any way responsible, it has that moral obligation,” Mr Lee said in a briefing.

“There are ways to do it, it’s a matter of whether a company acts responsibly and respect the importance of (a) national anthem in the global context.”

He said he would continue to press Google to make that change.

The comments came a day after the city’s security chief Chris Tang strongly criticised Google, saying it has refused to make amendments to its search results and accused it of “double standards”.

“Google claimed it could not accede to our request because [the search results are determined by] algorithm and it cannot do anything with it,” Mr Tang said on Monday.

“But it has been widely known that anyone who wants their information to be seen by more people could spend money on adverts to get their posts promoted.”

He said Google has accepted similar requests from the EU’s top court to remove the data from online search results if users can prove it is inaccurate.

“Google owns an explanation to people in Hong Kong and the HKSAR will do everything we can to correct the situation,” Mr Tang said, referring to its official name Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China.

He added: “The claim by Google that its hands are tied is incomprehensible and I am sure Hongkongers would find it unacceptable.”

The Hong Kong government directed its ire at Google after it found the pro-democracy protest song “Glory to Hong Kong” is routinely displayed at the top of the page when someone searched for Hong Kong’s anthem.

The government said it asked the company to prevent misleading results on searches for the keywords “Hong Kong” and “national anthem”.

The song “Glory to Hong Kong” whose lyrics refer to “tears on our land” and call for “democracy and liberty” became popular during months of anti-government protests in 2019. The song is considered banned after Beijing imposed sweeping national security law and authorities have been cracking down on those using it.

The Hong Kong government issued a strongly worded rebuke and demanded an investigation after the Asia Rugby Sevens tournament match in Incheon, South Korea, played the instrumental version of “Glory to Hong Kong” in the stadium in November.

Earlier this month, Asian Classic Powerlifting Championship in Dubai ended up making a similar gaffe, prompting the participating Hong Kong athlete to make a “T” hand gesture to stop the song.