We’re all under pressure from social media
When it comes to bad behaviour in public going viral via clips on smartphones, it may be best to adopt the much derided stiff upper lip of the British
A group of students led by their union president occupied the language centre and harassed staff at Baptist University in Hong Kong for half a day. Their actions were videoed and widely shared, leading to one student protester and the president being reprimanded and suspended.
If there had been no video record of their misdeeds, their protest might have been more easily defended.
After all, there is room for debate over whether all Baptist undergraduates should be made to sit a Mandarin test before being allowed to graduate. But your sympathy tends to dissipate once you have seen the video.
A former student union president who went on a deranged tirade against mainland students at Chinese University in Hong Kong briefly made him the most infamous person online last September.
Nowadays, everyone has a smartphone. Any misbehaviour you commit in public can easily end up being seen by thousands or even millions on YouTube.