Beijing’s pick for Hong Kong chief executive can win without YouTube

Google said today (April 20) it shut down the YouTube campaign channel of John Lee, who is likely to replace Carrie Lam as Hong Kong chief executive following next month’s election.

Alphabet, Google’s parent company and the owner of YouTube, said in a statement it took down Lee’s YouTube channel to comply with US sanctions over the Hong Kong official’s role developing and enforcing the city’s national security law. Lee’s Facebook page is still up, but parent company Meta said they shut down the candidate’s access to its payment services.

While these moves limit Lee’s ability to disseminate campaign messages to the public, they’re unlikely to have any real bearing on the election, as the pro-Beijing candidate is the only one running for the position.

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