Hong Kong protest song holds top spot in Google search results for overseas internet users, despite city’s efforts to keep national anthem at No 1

‘Glory to Hong Kong’ listed as top result in searches for city’s anthem carried out in Singapore, Canada and Australia
Protest song in second place for queries by users in UK, US and Taiwan, as top spot goes to Wikipedia page on history of city’s anthems

Hong Kong politics

Fiona Sun

Published: 2:08pm, 20 Apr 2023

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Efforts by Hong Kong authorities to ensure the Chinese national anthem is the top result in related Google searches have failed to pay off in several countries, as links to other topics, including a song tied to the anti-government protests, were ranking higher.

A check by the Post on Thursday found a search query for “Hong Kong national anthem” still showed that a Wikipedia page about “Glory to Hong Kong”, written during the 2019 social unrest and which had ranked first for months, was listed as the top entry in Singapore, Canada and Australia.

The same search made in New York, London and Taiwan ranked the page second and another Wikipedia page titled “National anthem of Hong Kong” first.

Chinese national anthem tops Google results after mix-ups with Hong Kong protest song

That entry provides information about the Chinese national anthem, “March of the Volunteers”, “God Save the King”, “Glory to Hong Kong” and “Below the Lion Rock”, with the latter two listed under the heading of “unofficial national anthems”.

The Post on Wednesday reported the website of the Constitutional and Mainland Affairs Bureau was the first result for the same search carried out in Hong Kong. The bureau recently updated its webpage dedicated to “March of the Volunteers” with links to download audio and video samples of the song.

But the Google searches carried out overseas ranked that webpage below the two Wikipedia pages.

The changes followed a series of mix-ups involving the national anthem and the protest song, which includes “liberate Hong Kong” and “revolution of our times” in its lyrics, at several international sports events.

The latest incident involved the Hong Kong Ice Hockey Association, which was thrust into the spotlight when the wrong song was played for 10 seconds following the men’s team victory over Iran at the Ice Hockey World Championship’s third division in Bosnia and Herzegovina on February 28.

Hong Kong ice hockey body advises other associations on how to avoid anthem blunders

Francis Fong Po-kiu, honorary president of the Hong Kong Information Technology Federation, said the search results and their rankings could change depending on a user’s location because of various factors, such as traffic to the webpages.

“There are many Hongkongers here visiting the bureau’s webpage after news reports about it, but fewer people overseas have learned about it or visited it,” he said.

The government could further promote the bureau’s website overseas or add more search keywords to push up its ranking, he added.

Professor William Wong Kam-fai, associate dean of Chinese University’s engineering faculty, suggested the government hire companies to identify the best keywords for specific locations and add them to the webpage.

Lawmaker Duncan Chiu Tat-kun, representing the technology and innovation sector, said that while the government had made efforts to improve the webpage’s ranking, Google should remove the incorrect information returned in searches for the city’s anthem.

He also urged authorities to inform international sports organisations about the bureau’s webpage, so they could download the audio and video files.

Authorities earlier told the Post they had not paid Google to change the ranking of the bureau’s website but had optimised relevant webpages to boost their position.

The government has been in close communication with the company over the results, urging the search giant to fulfil its corporate responsibility to ensure it provided users with correct information.