An algorithm is to blame, says Google in response to complaints from members of Hong Kong’s pro-China legislative council and others that using Google to search for the national anthem fails to exclude a pro-democracy song from the search results.
“Hong Kong’s official anthem has been China’s ‘March of the Volunteers,’ since Beijing regained sovereignty over the former British colony 25 years ago,” the Wall Street Journal reported in December 2022. “Antigovernment protesters in 2019 adopted ‘Glory to Hong Kong’—before the imposition of a national security law—and it has featured prominently on Google and YouTube since then.”
The protester-approved anthem shows up in search results for Hong Kong’s national anthem because it’s the same category of thing as the official China-approved anthem, even though “March of the Volunteers” celebrates unity under Chinazi dictatorship and “Glory to Hong Kong” celebrates freedom and demands the liberation of Hong Kong.
The presence of both anthems in search results has “led to confusion…at sporting events when the protest anthem was played, angering local officials and triggering an investigation by the Hong Kong police’s organized crime bureau.”
According to Duncan Chiu, one of the lawmakers protesting the protest anthem, Google should act to suppress it. It’s about “dignity and respect,” Chiu says, employing words he should look up before using again. He also wants the courts to determine whether the song violates the National Security Law that China imposed a few years ago to systematically squelch dissent
In 2020, the Hong Kong Legislative Council criminalized disrespect for the China-approved national anthem.
In June 2023, the Hong Kong government sought to criminalize the singing or distribution of “Glory to Hong Kong.”
