Using Russia-based servers and promoted by powerful groups linked to China’s ruling Communist Party, a sophisticated anonymous website is targeting Hong Kong pro-democracy figures — and there is almost no way to stop it.
From high-profile activists to journalists and lawmakers, about 200 people seen as supporting Hong Kong’s protest movement have been “doxxed” — had their personal details posted online — by the site, HK Leaks, since it emerged in August.
“I received hundreds of threatening calls,” a female reporter at Apple Daily, a pro-democracy newspaper, told AFP.
“They would call me a bitch, and a prostitute, and tell me to watch out or they would kill me.” Disclosing certain personal details, including phone numbers, without consent is illegal in Hong Kong.
Privacy Commissioner Stephen Wong said on September 17 he had ordered HK Leaks to take down all posts.
But the site remains online: on its front page, a photo of black-clad protesters with a Chinese-language banner saying: “We want to know who these people are and why they are messing up Hong Kong!” Personal details — names, home addresses, personal telephone numbers —of hundreds of people are posted alongside details of their “misdeeds”.
More than two million people follow Facebook pages that have shared HK Leaks posts, according to data from social media monitoring platform CrowdTangle.