Hong Kong leader John Lee makes a splash on China’s Weibo – but where are the critics and is it all just one big echo chamber?
- Hong Kong leader’s following on Weibo vastly outnumbers the 30,800 he has on Facebook and 7,300 on Instagram
- Some 85.7 per cent of the 165,000 interactions on his Facebook account are positive with just 1.4 per cent indicating ‘angry’ or ‘sad’ responses
About 3,000 comments flooded his account in a day, mostly from mainland Chinese across the country, and mostly full of praise.
“The tone you now adopt is more like a mainland diplomat – a sign of a closer relationship between us!” gushed internet user “Heiheihei Xiao” from Heilongjiang, China’s northernmost province.
The first Hong Kong leader on the mainland’s social media scene, Lee has amassed 1.46 million Weibo followers in just six weeks since taking office on July 1.
They vastly outnumber his 30,800 followers on Facebook and 7,300 on Instagram, even though he puts out almost identical content on all three platforms.
One explanation could be that Weibo has 582 million active monthly users whereas Facebook – which is banned on the mainland – has 4.45 million users in Hong Kong, according to latest official figures.