Ng Man-ho, a 27-year-old computer technician, was convicted last month of seven counts of incitement charges after he made use of the 100,000-member Chinese-language channel that he runs and manages to post "seditious messages," which had been shut down since August 2020. End-to-end encryption is an important feature in messaging, as it's the first step in protecting users from surveillance. In handing down the sentence yesterday, deputy judge Peter Hui Shiu-keung of the district court said that even if Ng did not post the messages, he cannot shirk responsibility as the owner and administrator of such a big group for allowing these messages that incite illegal behaviors to exist. “[The defendant] could not shift his criminal liability,” Hui said. Hui said the time period and nature of some offences “overlapped” and thus their prison terms could be served concurrently. The judge ordered Ng to be jailed for a total of six years and six months.
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