Bloomberg looks at how the Hong Kong government rolls out the welcome mat for online influencers who promote the city and counter Western media’s perceived bias…
“Influencers, from Hong Kong’s perspective, allow [officials] to circumvent traditional media gatekeepers,” said Arun Sudhaman, a PR industry analyst and founding editor at Earned First. “There is weariness in Hong Kong government circles about international media, and this gives them a way to try and get their message out.”
(Weariness or wariness? Both, probably.)
Despite the positive publicity generated by [comedian Jimmy O] Yang’s tours of Hong Kong, it was the government’s unprecedented use of national security laws to ban a mobile game earlier this month that generated headlines across global media. From the government’s perspective, the game was a seditious attempt by its Taiwan-based developers to promote secessionism. Yet others might see the intervention as further evidence of shrinking civil freedoms amid national security concerns. Just this week, Hong Kong’s education chief warned of the risks of “soft resistance” infiltrating schools through book fairs.
Either way, these aren’t subjects co-opted influencers are likely to delve into on their social media platforms. And this means they are lower risk from a public relations perspective, said Sudhaman, who previously spent more than four decades in Hong Kong.
To him, the government’s increasing use of influencers is more tactical than strategic.
“This approach, once again, demonstrates that Hong Kong is treating its reputation issues as a communications problem rather than addressing whatever the broader policy concerns or broader reputation concerns might be,” Sudhaman said.
As its press statements make clear, the Hong Kong authorities see PR in terms of shrilly insisting it is right and critics are wrong (despicable, etc). There’s probably little else they can do, assuming patriotism and NatSec – and anti-Westernism – are non-negotiable. But while ‘influencers’ might sell a positive view of the city, their millions of teenage viewers are probably not the international political and business leaders who our officials would most like to convince. They’re targetting an easy but not very fruitful audience.
Some audiences closer to home aren’t getting the message: anti-government vandalism breaks out in the New Territories.
Joel Chan follows up on his chart on changes in employment by age group by looking at the stats since 2018 and comparing the change in the size of the age groups, both in employment and overall. This is quite extreme…
The number of over-65s has risen by 38.5% overall, while those in work have gone up an incredible 64.3%. The number of 20-24-year-olds fell a whopping 45.3%, while those in work declined 27.1%; 25-29s fell 25.7% and 19.5% respectively. The elderly are booming and working like never before, while the young are vanishing.
That heinous monkey will be charged under the National Security Law. If you think that’s a joke: PK Tang does not do jokes.
When you’ve lost even the monkeys, you need to take a long, hard look into the mirror and wonder how you became such a loathsome sack of shit.
The edlerly have been shafted for years now with zero or near interest rates that deprive them of income from their savings so staying on the job is often a necessity not a choice.
Their plight has provided the cheap money that has minted all those new millionaires while they face diminishing returns that are well below the inceases ini nflation, prices of goods and services.
Unfortunately no Greta Thunberg has emerged to ignite a united action whereby pissed off elderly worldwide withdraw their funds from the system until a fair return is guaranteed.