Social media and the spread of fake news during a social movement: The 2019 Anti-ELAB protests in Hong Kong

This article summarizes the author’s observations and preliminary research findings about the politics of fake news and rumors during the 2019 Anti-Extradition Bill movement in Hong Kong. The fake news phenomenon is understood as grounded in the social-psychological needs of people in times of uncertainty, a political culture marked by polarization and normative disinhibition, and a mediascape that facilitates the fragmentation and privatization of public communication. The 2019 Hong Kong movement shows that, in the context of contentious politics, fake news and rumors can be used by political power to delegitimize a protest movement, but they can also be used by a protest movement to pressurize the political power and to sustain itself. It is argued that the roles, consequences, and normative desirability of fake news and rumors need to be examined in terms of how they are embedded in the power relationships and interactional dynamics of the movement concerned.