Matt Hussey, editorial director of NEAR Protocol (and former editor-in-chief of Decrypt) responded to the news of the Telegram group with “#meIRL.” 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. The channel also called on people to turn out for illegal assemblies and listed the things that participants should bring along with them, showing prior planning was in the works for riots. The messages also incited people to hurl toxic gas bombs at police and MTR stations, he added. The public channel had more than 109,000 subscribers, Judge Hui said. Ng had the power to remove or amend the messages in the channel, but he “allowed them to exist.” Ng was convicted in April for conspiracy to incite a riot, public nuisance, arson, criminal damage, manufacturing of explosives, administering poison and wounding with intent to do grievous bodily harm between October 2019 and June 2020.
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