(Watch This ) Article 23 legislation | Paul Lam: No intention to ban any social media

The Legislative Council (LegCo) held a joint meeting today (March 6) to discuss Basic Law Article 23 legislation.

Several Legislative Council Members raised a series of questions on "whether this behavior is illegal", which were answered one by one by the Secretary for Justice, Paul Lam, and the Secretary for Security, Tang Ping-keung.

Legislative Council Member Ip Lau Suk-yee expressed that in the paper submitted by the government to the Legislative Council, there were views in the community that "social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram should be banned from use in Hong Kong", and that some foreign media had even directly reported on them as the government's views, spreading fake news.

In response, Paul Lam said, "I can say very categorically that there is absolutely no intention whatsoever to ban any social media."

"We're targeting people exploiting, abusing and misusing those tools to disseminate information or comments endangering national security, that's our target. We're not targeting social media," he said.

"Hong Kong has freedom of information and freedom of speech. That's enshrined in the Basic Law and the National Security Law. Hong Kong is an international city. In finance and other activities, we need freedom of information. This is our unique strength, we need to strengthen and safeguard such freedom."

"I believe this sort of alarmist information is very likely disseminated by those with ulterior motives to obstruct our legislation," he added, saying that he hopes everyone can look at this matter rationally.