How Encrypted Messages and Car ‘Crashes’ Helped Hong Kong Protesters
- Demonstrators used Telegram to share information quickly
- Police were also faster to push back after 2014 experience
Thousands of black-clad demonstrators braved tear gas and rain for 79 days in Hong Kong’s 2014 "Umbrella Movement.” The lessons of that agitation appear to have made the city’s protesters swifter and better prepared in some of their latest attempts to weather police action.
The young citizens who crowded into the streets this week to protest a bill that would allow extradition to mainland China used the Telegram encrypted messaging app to share locations. They handed out surgical masks for protection against pepper spray and tear gas, and crucially, to hide their faces from the police. They turned cars and trucks into roadblocks in the middle of highways. And they set up supply stations throughout the demonstration, acting more quickly than they did five years ago.