The “Streisand Effect” on full show: John Lee and the Wall Street Journal

Online with comments here 

“The Streisand Effect” is when something you wanted to hide becomes even more widely known because you complained about it.

Our Chief Executive John Lee complains about an editorial in the Wall Street Journal with what he claims is negative coverage of a recent conference. Lee’s complaint leads to even more coverage of the Journal editorial.

I subscribe to the Journal (and to the New York Times, Washington Post, The Times, SMH, The Atlantic and Spectator…). But I had missed the editorial until John Lee led me to it.

The para in the red box above — quoting the editorial — I’d fact-check as “partially true” or even “mostly false”. There’s still freedom of speech in Hong Kong, though there is no chance of getting permission for a large demo. Right now it’s not on because of Covid. But even later I doubt it. The judiciary, however, remains robust — or so it seems to me, so far. Commenters at the site have different views.

Big lesson for the John Lees of the government: stop with the bashing the media, already! It only bounces back to bite you.