Protesters in the Hong Kong International Airport departure hall on Aug. 12. Photographer: Anthony Kwan/Getty Images

How Hong Kong’s Leaderless Protest Army Gets Things Done

By Shelly Banjo, Natalie Lung, Annie Lee and Hannah Dormido

August 22, 2019, 12:00 PM EDT

In the waning hours of one of Hong Kong’s most violent days since pro-democracy protests began in June, the city’s online army wanted vengeance.

Videos circulating on message boards and apps on Sunday, Aug. 11, showed police firing tear gas and projectiles at short range inside a subway station, as well as officers who impersonated demonstrators to infiltrate their ranks. Most shocking were images of a woman with blood streaming out of her right eye after police allegedly shot bean-bag rounds into a crowd.

Medics attend to an injured woman in Tsim Sha Tsui on Aug. 11. Photographer: Anthony Wallace/AFP via Getty Images

Tech-savvy protesters didn’t wait for a leader to tell them how to respond. Instead, they flooded online forums with suggestions that could be voted up or down by their peers, who eventually agreed to overtake Hong Kong’s international airport.

Those discussion groups, like a free-wheeling digital town hall, serve as the backbone of a movement mounting an unprecedented challenge to China’s increased control over the financial hub. Denied full democracy by the Communist Party in Beijing, they’ve decided to create their own.

“When there’s no single individual decision maker, it’s hard for the government to predict what will happen and launch any kind of suppression,” said Joshua Wong, a main leader of the 2014 Occupy protests in Hong Kong who spent time in jail and now considers himself part of the rank and file. “We don’t have a leader this time, but we have a platform.”

The technology underpinning the movement is a big reason the protests have no end in sight: Authorities can’t simply lock up the masterminds and send everyone home. At the same time, no single leader has enough clout to call off the protests, cut a deal with Chief Executive Carrie Lam or even tell fellow demonstrators what to do next.

Wong himself is a case in point. Lionized in a 2017 documentary on Netflix titled “Joshua: Teenager vs. Superpower,” he’s now just one of thousands of voices discussing ideas on platforms such as LIHKG, a Hong Kong-based forum like Reddit that allows users to endorse posts they support, and Telegram, which allows anonymous users to broadcast messages, photos and videos to hundreds of thousands of people.

In the mainland, China can simply use its Great Firewall to shut down the online discussion. But in Hong Kong, doing so may damage the city’s autonomy as much as putting Chinese troops on every street corner.

Despite Beijing’s efforts to curtail free speech in Hong Kong, the ability to freely surf the web and exchange ideas remains a key attraction for foreign investors. As long as protesters can use online tools, including some banned in China like Google Drive, they will remain a threat to both Hong Kong’s government and Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Last week’s airport seizure showed the complex ecosystem in action. On the night of Aug. 11, one of the first suggestions to swarm the terminal buildings appeared in a Telegram group at 8:50 p.m., shortly after photos circulated of the injured woman.

“If people marching in the different districts today all came here to the airport, it can be paralyzed,” posted a user called “Shiba Taro” in a group used to organize an earlier sit-in at the arrivals hall. “They’re going to fire shots and aim at the head anyway—let’s take them down together with us.”

A spirited debate about the pros and cons followed in various online forums. The airport had some practical advantages, such as air conditioning, WiFi, nice toilets and decent food options. Most importantly, proponents said, it would rattle the economy and the government would have trouble dispersing the crowds, upping the stakes dramatically.

Not everyone was convinced. Some users called the airport a “very last resort,” and suggested targeting shopping malls or the subway system instead. Others like “Strawberry Milkshake” called for calm, while someone named “Moni K” noted an airport shutdown would hurt their image among foreigners who generally supported the movement.

After more than an hour of discussion, the Telegram channel administrator called a vote at 10:02 p.m. It was a landslide: 79% of more than 4,000 users supported escalating the airport protests.

Over on discussion forum LIHKG, a similar consensus had formed. At 11:47 p.m., a post calling for protesters to obstruct airport check-ins received 1,046 upvotes compared with only 36 down. Meanwhile, users rejected a proposal to target the subway instead by a margin of almost three to one.

For Hong Kong, this is all new—not least because Telegram and LIHKG were essentially niche products just a few months ago. In July alone, Telegram became the city’s seventh-most downloaded app from No. 88 a year earlier, according to mobile data provider Sensor Tower. LIHKG usage surged tenfold from the year before.

While the platforms carry risks—Telegram founder Pavel Durov accused China of attacking the app with an unsustainable volume of traffic during June protests—their shadowy nature appeals to demonstrators who wear masks to avoid detection and purchase single-use subway cards so police can’t track them.

Photo: Protesters wear mock eye patches in tribute to the injured woman, allegedly shot by the police with a bean-bag round, at the airport on Aug. 12.

Video: Protesters stage a sit-in at the airport on Aug. 12. Credit: Kyle Lam/Bloomberg

They’re also seen as more egalitarian than Facebook, which has played a more prominent role in anti-government protests throughout the Middle East and Africa, because its algorithms don’t give equal weight to all ideas. Telegram discussion groups, for instance, are referred to as a “public sea” where anyone can have a say.

The groups have allowed netizens to mobilize large crowds quickly. One of the largest on LIHKG, known as “Scorched Earth Team,” this month raised more than $1 million in less than an hour to place ads about police brutality in global newspapers. The “supplies team” helps store helmets, gas masks and other protest gear, while graphic designers in the “marketing team” create artwork to highlight key moments and advertise events.

After midnight on Monday, Aug. 12, the first few promotional fliers highlighting the airport protest popped up across the internet. By morning, more than 100 different ones had been circulated.

Airport authorities got wind of the protest by mid-morning, and sent out a statement restricting access to the check-in area at Terminal 1. But officials still appeared caught off guard by the sheer number of demonstrators.

At around 4 p.m., the airport issued an unprecedented statement that shocked Hong Kong and the world: All flights would be canceled for the rest of the day.

Rumors began circulating that police would storm the airport. V. Ho, a 19-year-old part-time student who helps administer the Telegram airport discussion group, quickly huddled with other organizers in the terminal. They agreed to tell people to disperse for their own safety.

Protesters vacate the airport after learning the police may storm the terminal building. Credit: Kyle Lam/Bloomberg

“At the end, nothing happened the entire night,” she said afterward. “We were criticized by people in the group. Even though our goal was met that day, I still felt very guilty for telling people to leave.”

In a Telegram poll later that night, demonstrators chose to head back to the airport for a second day. Wary of upsetting the group again, Ho and other administrators resolved to just organize polls for users instead of making decisions themselves.

It didn’t take long on Tuesday, Aug. 13, for the terminal buildings to fill up and for airport authorities to cancel all flight check-ins once again. But the mood among protesters had turned darker, from a righteous anger the day before to something more like a paranoid frenzy.

A visitor squeezes his way through protesters on Aug. 13. Photograph: Kyle Lam/Bloomberg

Some time around 7 p.m., with the terminal buildings heaving, a group of protesters beat up a mainland Chinese man they suspected was a police officer seeking to infiltrate the group. The crowd then refused to let paramedics evacuate the man for the next few hours, leading to a stomach-turning standoff on live television in which it was unclear whether he would survive.

Asked by a Bloomberg reporter what would happen if the man died, one protester at the airport said “I would clap.” That sentiment was shared online: In response to a poll asking if the group should let the man go, about 75% said he should either be detained or severely beaten.

After several attempts, rescue personnel finally managed to evacuate the man. Less than an hour later, protesters accosted another Chinese citizen, this time a reporter with the state-run Global Times newspaper. They tied his wrists and ankles to a luggage trolley with plastic cords before beating him. Paramedics eventually got him out and rushed him to the hospital.

Though both men survived, the incidents shocked the conscience of Hong Kongers and westerners alike who support the broader push for greater democracy, showing the pitfalls of a leaderless movement.

Photo: A suspected mainland Chinese police officer is filmed while being detained by protesters on Aug. 13. Photographer: Philip Fong/AFP via Getty Images. Video: Protesters tie up a Global Times reporter on Aug. 13. Source: AP

“It was purely a mob mentality,” said Antony Dapiran, a Hong Kong-based lawyer who authored the book “City of Protest” about the financial hub. “People in a crowd lose their individual thinking, and without some sort of moral authority or leader figure there was no one to talk the crowd back and calm things down.”

Clashes with police who sought to rescue the detained mainlanders⁠—including an incident where an officer drew his gun to fend off attackers⁠—started to rattle protesters. At around the same time the Global Times reporter was tied up, a Telegram poll asked demonstrators whether they should end the airport sit-in. Nearly 81% of respondents said yes, and many started leaving⁠—a sober end to the most dramatic two days yet in the historic movement.

The soul-searching began shortly afterward. By 1 a.m. Wednesday morning, a Telegram poll showed that 74% of nearly 11,000 respondents voted to apologize for the violence and the disruption to travelers.

In the days that followed, the chastened netizens took a backseat to more traditional Hong Kong pro-democracy forces. The Civil Human Rights Front, which organized some of the largest demonstrations over the past few months, led a peaceful mass rally through the rain on Sunday that helped reset the movement.

While the Civil Human Rights Front sticks to legal activities, it’s pursuing the same ultimate goal as protesters who engage in civil disobedience like the siege of the Legislative Council on June 12. Bonnie Leung, the group’s vice convener, credits that move for prompting the government to shelve the bill allowing extraditions to China, which sparked the unrest in early June.

Protesters display an apology at the airport on Aug. 14. Photographer: Paul Yeung/Bloomberg

“Being peaceful is the backbone of the movement,” Leung said. “But there are still limitations: Peaceful protesters can’t stop the hearing from happening. The clashes can.”

That understanding between moderates and more radical groups stands in contrast to 2014, when infighting undermined their ability to occupy strategic areas of the city. This time all of them have adopted the motto “no pointing fingers, no selling out, no severing ties” to sustain the movement.

The protesters also changed tactics: In 2014, they physically occupied Hong Kong’s central business district and had to camp out 24 hours a day or risk losing momentum. This time around, an ever-changing menu of events allows demonstrators to pick and choose how they participate while keeping their day jobs.

Protesters turned out in force at a peaceful march that contrasted with violent clashes with police in previous weeks, on Aug. 18. Photographer: Kyle Lam/Bloomberg

The next six weeks will be critical as students head back to school in early September and the Communist Party prepares to celebrate its 70th anniversary of ruling China on Oct. 1. More rallies are scheduled, including one organized by the Civil Human Rights Front on Aug. 31 that plans to end at China’s main liaison office in the city.

One of the biggest tests of unity will come this weekend, when netizens are again planning to disrupt airport operations. Judging by the online chatter, many protesters are ready for a fight: The only question is how many other demonstrators will join them.

“824 is the ultimate airport ‘if we burn, you burn with us’ battle!” said one Telegram poll that received support from 63% of respondents, referring to the date of the protest. “We won’t retreat even if police dogs are brought in; firing a gun is no big deal either! We mustn’t let the government drag this out any longer.”

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