IT Professional Certification System and IT Manpower Roaster Feasibility Study (ITPCRS) is a project on standardisation of the IT professional competency requirements towards a professional certification system for Hong Kong, and a feasibility study on a territory-wide self-sustainable IT Manpower Roster for long-term IT human resources planning in Hong Kong. An increasing number of organisations, both local and global, share a common vision in the need for identifying employees' qualification. ITPCRS, organised by the Hong Kong Computer Society and sponsored by the Office of the Government Chief Information Officer, targets to facilitate in materialising an IT professional certification acceptable by employers as a standard in professional-level, as well as providing the IT fraternity a roadmap for their progressive career development.
I am deeply concerned about this court ruling today that someone posting a hyperlink to some porn pictures in some local forum was judged by the court to be guilty under COIAO (Control of Obscene and Indecent Articles Ordinance) and sentenced to $5000 fine. This is a first case in Hong Kong established against the posting of a hyperlink.
I have a lot of questions about the case that really trouble me:
- The Judge seemed to have ruled that the defendent distributed an obscene article, so how was the hyperlink deemed to be “article” that is obscene under COIAO?
-These pictures were deemed to be "obsecene" but just "normal porn pictures" and not clearly illegal materials like child porn. And if so, maybe it was just that the accused did not distribute the articles without proper warning message (similar to plastic wrapping on magazines)?
-In this case, are the pictures hosted in Hong Kong or elsewhere? Most likely they are posted outside HK, because if they are in Hong Kong, the actual website hosting those pictures should be prosecuted too, right?
-Why is the forum owner not prosecuted, just the user?
I think it is uncalled for for law enforecement to bring the case to court. Apparently someone made a complaint to TELA. But they are probably definitely many more serious (worse) pictures being posted on forums, and why did the Police only prosecute this case? The fact that the law enforcement in Hong Kong seldom likes to use education first, but always want to test the limit of the court by bringing nitty gritty cases to test, this practice worries me a lot and I think it is unfair to the users because they are not warned ahead of the dangers (you can’t just say, “you are posting dirty pictures so you deserve it”), and to the providers it is troublesome too. I clearly remember years ago as the Chairman of the ISP Association, TELA told me that they can’t do anything about those hyperlinks even if the content behind them are child porn. When did that change!?
If hyperlinks are articles that can constitute as “articles” in COIAO, will it be a precedent case that others can prosecute people posting hyperlink for many other “crimes” in civil or criminal courts for all kinds of things, even subversion or libel? It is not right I think to judge hyperlink this way, because the link points to some place not controlled by this user making use of the hyperlink, and the content behind the hyperlink can change.
This will also have dire implications to search engines or even other web hosting companies or ISPs. Does the Hong Kong government want them to carry out self-censorship from now on, on even hyperlinks? Search engine companies may be the first to get into troubles. This has serious negative consequences for Hong Kong's IT infrastructure (which includes our legal infrastructure) and the reputation of having freedom of information. Should Google and Yahoo! get out of Hong Kong?
In the end, is the Police or the Hong Kong Government trying to turn Hong Kong into a cleansed society like not just Singapore but Saudi Arabia? How are they convinced that there is such serious problem with porn on the Internet that there ought to be a crackdown?
I urge the defendent to appeal the case. If the COIAO can be applied to even a hyperlink, I believe legislators should call for an immediate review of this ordinance to amend it and cut it down to size.
Prof Douglas Fuller on China's Technological Development
I attended a lunch talk today with Prof Douglas Fuller, Assistant Professor of American University and Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of Management of Chinese University of Hong Kong. The topic of his presentation was "Creating Ladders out of Chains: China's Technological Development in a World of Global Production" (download from here). Professor Fuller argues for the positive effects of foreign investment especially those by ethic Chinese, contributing to China's development in the technological industry, and he was relatively skeptical of the argument for domestic government support policies or even the call for "indigenous innovation." While most "dragon-head" firms championed by the government and its policies turn out to be paper tigers, the pattern of foreign contribution is evident from his study of firms in the IC (integrated circuits) industry and patent data. All that can go wrong with a "picking winner" system have indeed gone wrong: easy for firms to claim strategic importance and government favoratism, but nothing to punish the losers. This observation is nothing too surprising to most of us. Yet this is a refreshingly independent viewpoint well supported by data and good analysis that is worthwhile of notice. The deeper analysis of the reasons behind this phenomenon will be very crucial, as Prof Fuller points out, China's industrial policy has been one of failure. I look forward to reading more of Prof Fuller's papers in future.
Roundtable on Cyberspace and Privacy: The Challenge in the Yahoo! Case
Roundtable on Cyberspace and Privacy: The Challenge in the Yahoo! Case By the HKU Faculty of Law for HKU and Public
Event Details
Chair: Kevin Pun, Faculty of Law and Department of Computer Science, HKU
Speakers: Johannes Chan, Faculty of Law, HKU John Bacon-Shone, Social Sciences Research Centre, HKU K.P. Chow, Center for Information Security and Cryptography, HKU Charles Mok, Chairman, Internet Society Hong Kong Rebecca Mackinnon, Journalism and Media Studies Centre, HKU