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Left: A protester gets updates of events on his phone in a march; Right: The logo of LIHKG and the popular stickers widely
used by netizens on this online forum.

the streets. Can we bring their power to the district councils?” lishing any messages online that encour-
Four days later, he posted the first post on LIHKG and recruited ages or incites violence that could do
the first squad of volunteers via the online forum. harm to individuals or cause
Yoyo and his teammates actually employ multiple social damage to their prop-
media networks. After absorbing new blood into the team, they erty. This temporary
created several smaller chat groups on Telegram based on con- injunction remains
stituencies and work categories. They also opened a Facebook in force until Novem-
page for “Hi! Freedom”, earning around 6,700 likes. ber 15 when a formal
hearing is held. The
Features of decentralised leadership ban applicable to any
Professor Francis Lee Lap-fung, school director of CUHK’s Francis Lee Lap-fung online platforms
School of Journalism and Communication, thinks the wide- specifically cites
spread popularity of these two online platforms during the LIHKG and Telegram as examples at the
months-long social movement is rooted in their “self-enforce- request of the Department of Justice.
ment dynamics”, which means that the more users the plat-
forms attract, the greater value they have. Functioning as a cy-
cle, when these platforms play an increasingly important role in
mobilising protesters, more and more people will turn to them Edited by Gloria Li
in return.
He says this online-driven and leaderless organisation
model can generate public enthusiasm to get involved in the
movement. “All the people think
of is how they can contribute to the
movement in their own way, which All the people think of is how they can
opens up more possibilities for inno-
vations in protest tactics,” Lee says. contribute to the movement in their own way,
“A stronger sense of engagement which opens up more possibilities for innova-
also helps sustain the participants’
support for the movement,” he adds. tions in protest tactics.
On October 31, the High Court
of Hong Kong issued an interim in- 352 18 9
junction to bar the public from pub-