Internet firms have complied with injunction against ‘Glory to Hong Kong’ protest song, city leader John Lee says

Lee, speaking ahead of the weekly meeting of the city’s key decision-making Executive Council, said the government would notify relevant platforms about the court order if it noticed any non-compliance.

The government later clarified that Lee was only referring to links specified in the injunction and Google search in Hong Kong.

The Court of Appeal banned “Glory to Hong Kong” earlier this month on the grounds that it had become a “weapon” that could be used to arouse anti-government and separatist sentiment.

The court document listed YouTube videos of 32 versions of the protest song that could be found in breach of the intended injunction, including instrumental covers, as well as those sung in Mandarin, English, German, Dutch, Japanese and Korean.

The song has mistakenly been played instead of the Chinese national anthem “March of the Volunteers” at several major sports in recent years.

Last Wednesday, US-based video-streaming giant YouTube said it had complied with the order by blocking access to 32 clips for viewers in the city.

But a Post check on Tuesday still found many Google search results for the song, with different versions on YouTube. At least 30 versions, which were uploaded with the hashtag “bank up”, have been uploaded since the injunction was issued.

The song remains available on music streaming platforms such as Spotify and Apple Music, and appears as the top results when searching for “Hong Kong National Anthem” on Google and YouTube.

Asked if authorities had any plans to request other online platforms to comply with the injunction, Lee merely said the government would monitor the situation and that he believed that operators in general operated within the law.

The injunction, which ruled in favour of the government, bans people from “broadcasting, performing, printing, publishing, selling, offering for sale, distributing, disseminating, displaying or reproducing [the song] in any way” with the intention to incite others to separate Hong Kong from the rest of the country, commit a seditious act or insult the national anthem, “March of the Volunteers”.

It also prohibits anyone from playing the song in a way likely to cause it “to be mistaken as the national anthem insofar as [Hong Kong] is concerned” or suggest the city “is an independent state and has a national anthem of her own”