Coordinating and doxing data: Hong Kong protesters’ and government supporters’ data strategies in the age of datafication

ABSTRACT

Scholars across various disciplines have discussed the role of ICTs and social media in contentious politics and social movements. Other studies have also highlighted the duality of data particularly in the context of contentious politics: data is simultaneously an object of political struggle and a weapon in repertoires of political struggle. Taking the protesters’ collective and networked program of sousveillance during the 2019 Hong Kong Anti-ELAB Movement as an example, this article examines protesters’ and pro-establishment’s engagement with data, the datafication of police as proxies of the state, and attitudes towards various forms of ‘veillance’. The doxing at the heart of this case study provides an example in which data as constituents of movement repertoire and data as a contentious issue in its own right are conflated. This article bridges the surveillance and social movement literature by examining data practice and doxing during the protest.

KEYWORDS:

• Datafication
• doxing
• anti-ELAB movement
• contentious politics of data
• data activism
• data ethics

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Shao-Fang (Christine) Kao for scraping the data from LIKHG and Mei Ling (Jay) Chan for data analysis. We appreciate the help of Ruiheng (Peter) Li and Lok Hei (Ken) Liu with manually coding the data from the two Telegram channels. The draft was presented at the paper development workshop organized by Stefania Milan and Davide Beraldo, and work-in-progress workshop by the Society for Hong Kong Studies (SHKS). We appreciate the valuable feedback from the participants, especially Vassilis Charitsis, Cristina Flesher Fominaya, Stefania Milan, Davide Beraldo, Francis Lee, Ching Kwan Lee, and Edmund W. Cheng. We extend our thanks to Samson Yuen, two anonymous reviewers, and the guest editors for their constructive comments and suggestions.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. See: https://www.bayarea.gov.hk/filemanager/en/share/pdf/Outline_Development_Plan.pdf.

2. The Office of the Privacy Commissioner for Personal Data (PCPD) defines ‘personal data’ as ‘information which relates to a living individual and can be used to identify that individual.’ See: https://www.pcpd.org.hk/english/data_privacy_law/ordinance_at_a_Glance/ordinance.html.

3. Millions took to the streets of Hong Kong in protest against a proposed amendment to the Extradition Law, that would permit the extradition of individuals within Hong Kong’s jurisdiction to China.

4. The online forum LIHKG is widely regarded as a central communication platform for Anti-ELAB movement supporters (Lee, 2020).

5. See: https://t.me/s/Dadfindboy. It is one of the leading channels created in response to police officers not wearing identification badges. It then evolved to even advocate for harassment and violence against police officers (Maragkou, 2019).

6. See: https://t.me/s/canigosomeplacefun.

7. ‘Fifty cents army’ is responsible for uncovering the state’s extensive efforts to delude negative content, and fostering a more legitimate vision of the party (Repnikova & Fang, 2018).

8. See: https://www.knime.com/.

9. Carrie Lam is the current Chief Executive of Hong Kong since 2017.

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the Strategic Priority Funding scheme, Arts, Design and Architecture (ADA), University of New South Wales [SPF02].

Notes on contributors

Yao-Tai Li

Yao-Tai Li is a Lecturer of Sociology and Social Policy in the School of Social Sciences at University of New South Wales, Australia. He holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of California, San Diego. His research interests include contentious politics, identity, and social media. His work has been published in several scholarly journals including British Journal of Sociology, The China Quarterly, World Development, Urban Studies, New Media and Society, Big Data & Society, Work, Employment and Society, The Sociological Review, Ethnic and Racial Studies, Discourse & Society, Social Science Computer Review, Journal of Contemporary Asia, among others.

Katherine Whitworth

Katherine Whitworth received her Ph.D. in political economy from the University of Sydney, Australia. Her research interests include political legitimacy, social welfare, contentious politics, Hong Kong and Chinese politics. Her work has been published in scholarly journals such as The China Quarterly, Big Data & Society, Urban Studies, World Development, Journal of Contemporary Asia, Journal of Consumer Culture, Social Science Computer Review, and International Migration. She is currently conducting a project on the Lennon Walls with Yao-Tai Li.