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Grand Theft Protest: Hong Kongers and Chinese gamers battle online
HONG KONG, Dec 24, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – Grand Theft Auto’s wildly popular
online multiplayer game has become the latest venue for Hong Kong pro-
democracy supporters and Chinese nationalists to wage their ideological
battles, with protests now breaking out in the virtual world.
Over the last fortnight message boards and social media platforms used
by gamers have filled with videos and chatter of the virtual clashes as well
insults and recriminations on both sides of the ideological divide.
GTA Online is an open world game that allows dozens of players to
explore and fight each other through the streets of a sprawling, fictional
American city.
After a recent expansion pack was released earlier this month, gamers in
Hong Kong noticed they could now dress their avatars in the clothing of their
movement, which is pushing for greater democratic freedoms and police
accountability.
They donned black clothes, gas masks and yellow helmets and went about
throwing petrol bombs, trashing subway stations and attacking police — a
virtual re-enactment of the protests that have upended the financial hub.
Their antics soon caught the attention of gamers in mainland China, who
subsequently dressed their characters up as police and battled the Hong
Kongers.
In a video clip posted on China’s Twitter-like Weibo platform on Monday,
gamers posted footage of the fight titled: “Compilation of players
slaughtering cockroaches.”
Cockroach is a term routinely used by Hong Kong’s police and government
supporters to describe protesters.
The video had more than 175,000 views by Tuesday afternoon.
“Our dignity can’t be trampled,” one message on the video read. “As a
Chinese player… we must fight!”
But in an illustration of the censorship people in China face, the
creators of the video blurred out some of the pro-democracy slogans written
by Hong Kong players.
Semi-autonomous Hong Kong has been shaken for six months by increasingly
violent pro-democracy protests.
They were initially sparked by a now-abandoned attempt to allow
extraditions to the authoritarian mainland but have since morphed into a
popular revolt against Beijing’s rule, with spiralling fears that the city is
losing some of its unique liberties.
China has thrown its weight behind the city’s unpopular authorities and
dismissed the huge rallies.
Among the demands being made by protesters is an inquiry into the police,
an amnesty for the more than 6,000 people arrested and the right to elect
Hong Kong’s leader.
BSS/AFP/RY/1525 hrs