[buildanduse]

I live in Hong Kong and work for two international IT organizations and couldn't do it without full access to the Internet. The start of restrictions on what we can access, and possibly on what we do, would trigger an immediate "exit the territory" plan for myself and many others. If mainland China wishes to do irreparable damage to Hong Kong as retribution for bucking the system, this would do it.

While my personal experience in Hong Kong has just been mediocre (have lived in APAC for 13 years - China, Taiwan, Hong Kong), the open access to news, social media, etc... is part of the local culture. Hong Kongers seem to have a similar cynical / critical view of all media - they want to validate the spin by their experience and other data points - a characteristic that is often seen as "western." This contributes to westerners feeling comfortable with Hong Kongers. It would be sad to see HK lose this.

Of course, the wider Internet's concentration of critical network infrastructure in organizations like Cloudflare, Google, and others mean that even the "free" Internet is not fully free or truly egalitarian. The world needs infrastructure-level solutions to the overall troubling trend of great firewalls, malicious cert. authorities, bad actors, etc... that can be trusted by all and maybe even be a ray of light for Hong Kong's future.

[woutr_be]

Same here, I've been looking to leave Hong Kong for a few years already, but was always comfortable enough to stay. The protests didn't have me worried a lot, but the response from the government has been disappointing to say the least. They're not looking to improve the situation, and treat people like they're babies. There's also a lot of personal reasons for me to leave, and a lot of minor annoyances in daily life that add up over time.

With that said, if any restrictions come into place, I'll definitely fast track my plan to leave, probably before the end of the year.