YouTube takes down Hong Kong leader candidate John Lee's channel

YouTube on Wednesday took down the campaign channel of Hong Kongs sole candidate to become its next leader John Lee citing compliance with US sanctions imposed against the former No 2 officialLee had set up a Facebook page and a YouTube channel to promote his campaign even though he is running uncontested in the election for chief executive on May 8 in which an Election Committee of about 1500 people will select the citys leaderThe committee is made up largely of proBeijing members including legislators and representatives of different professions and industries in the cityLee who resigned as chief secretary earlier this month to run in the election had been livestreaming his meetings with media and political figures in the city on bothFacebook and YouTube prior to the termination of his YouTube channelHe is among a group of top Hong Kong and Beijing officials including current leader Carrie Lam who were sanctioned by the US in 2020 for undermining the citys autonomy and restricting its freedoms following Beijings imposition of a tough national security law on the semiautonomous cityGoogle YouTubes parent company said in a statement that it complies with applicable US sanctions laws and enforces related policies under its Terms of ServiceAfter review and consistent with these policies we terminated the Johnlee2022 YouTube channel it saidLees campaign office said it was disappointed by the decisionThe termination reflects the flagrant hegemonic tactics employed by the US government Imposing the socalled sanction on Mr Lee so as to intimidate him will not in any way affect his strong determination to continue to safeguard national security it said in a statementMr Lees election campaign will not be affected by Googles decision Mr Lee will continue to use his best efforts to reach out to the public to explain his platform and to hear their views through many different means and channels it saidA spokesperson for Facebook now called Meta said Lee will be allowed to maintain a demonetised presence on Facebook and Instagram and we have taken steps to prevent the use of payments services His Facebook page remained accessible Wednesday eveningThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever