'Google's Policy Calls For Removal Of Wrong Content'

Chief Executive John Lee said on Tuesday that the government will continue to liaise with Google to rectify its search results, to make sure that

comes up as Hong Kong's national anthem.

Hits on the search engine have brought up the name of a song associated with the 2019 protests as well as God Save The King, rather than China's anthem. The internet company said previously it could not change the top search results because they are based on an algorithm.

Speaking ahead of the weekly Executive Council meeting, Lee noted that it is in Google’s interest to rectify the problem because its own policy requires it to remove content that “misrepresent or mislead”.

“Obviously, it misrepresents the Hong Kong national anthem, and it misleads people to think that the song that has been searched as purportedly the Hong Kong national anthem is not the actual Hong Kong national anthem. So it is presenting content that misrepresents and misleads,” he said.

“I think that Google is a responsible company... I think that an organisation as big as Google will take these things seriously.”

Lee added that the tech giant's policy also allows for the removal of content for legal reasons.

“It is an offence for somebody to play a song which is not the Hong Kong national anthem, which is also the national anthem of the PRC because it constitutes insult,” the CE said.

“So it conforms to the Google policy of removing content for legal reason.”