News Room
Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor went live on her personal Facebook page last night to consult the public on her new policy address, becoming the first chief executive to conduct an online live broadcast since the handover.However, the emoji (expression icons) that appeared throughout the process reflected that there were very few likes, and most of them were 嬲嬲 (angry).
Carrie Lam lowered her figure and listened to the opinions of netizens in person, which is actually a major breakthrough for the Hong Kong government.She explained at the beginning that the current Hong Kong government attaches great importance to creativity and interaction, so it accepts the opinions of young colleagues and interacts with netizens on social networking sites.
However, the pan-democratic political party had already threatened to wash the page and called on netizens to voice their dissatisfaction, including in response to the controversy over freedom of speech and press caused by the Hong Kong Foreign Correspondents’ Club’s invitation to the National Party’s Chen Haotian to give a speech, asking the Hong Kong government to review the one-way permit system for imported population, as well as land and housingquestion etc.
The pro-establishment faction is relatively low-key, and the only issues raised are to demand that Article 23 of the Basic Law (National Security) should be enacted as soon as possible, and the noise controversy caused by street performances should be properly dealt with.
During the 45-minute webcast, Carrie Lam responded to the questions very seriously, including admitting for the first time that the housing policy proposed at the end of June was indeed a reference to Singapore; he also reiterated that the daily quota of 150 one-way permits is a human right, and asked netizens why notWelcome to the policy.
She said: I do not agree with the statement that mainlanders who use one-way permits to come to Hong Kong rob Hong Kong people of their resources.Hong Kong has a low birth rate and a serious population aging problem, so new troops coming to Hong Kong will bring more new blood and help promote economic development.
Facing the siege of pan-democrats, Carrie Lam remained calm during the live broadcast.In fact, as soon as she took office last year, she stated that she would fight the public opinion battle well, and immediately set up a Facebook page and an Instagram page. Regardless of the language or materials, she was closer to the Internet style of the public.
Except for Tung Chee-hwa, the former three chief executives of Hong Kong actually set up Facebook pages, but they behaved relatively conservatively.Among them, Tsang Yam-kuen opened a special page on Albert Road (the location of the government headquarters at that time) in 2010, but the response was mediocre; a year later, he set up a QA session on current affairs, inviting accountability officials from time to time to answer questions from netizens on hot social topics.pre-submitted questions.Once he even made a film himself, talking about the future of youth.At that time, the person in charge of managing the page was the Special Assistant to the Chief Executive's Office.
Leung Chun-ying, who became Chief Executive in 2012, did not open a personal Facebook account until 2015, which was managed by his news coordinator.Although all the content was made public, non-friend netizens were not allowed to leave a message.
Checking in likes on social media has become a trend, and it has become an indispensable thing for millennials.Currently, Carrie Lam is far from being an internet celebrity.On the contrary, Zeng Junhua, who competed with her for chief executive last year, has already shown the potential of being an Internet celebrity.Recently, he became a senior executive of an information technology company, and he shared his views on innovation and technology when he was interviewed by Facebook Live.
