People primarily communicate through Telegram groups and stream their actions on gaming platform Twitch. As violence has escalated in recent weeks, though, police have been cracking down harder. So now protesters are resorting to more unorthodox methods of organising and communicating online.

When the Hong Kong police denied protesters permission to march in one of the city’s suburban neighbourhoods on safety grounds, the protesters decided to say that they weren’t going for a march – they were just showing up for a game of Pokémon Go.

The march in Yuen Long on July 27 was held in response to violent attacks on protesters a week earlier from more than 100 white-clad assailants, with some of those arrested having links to triad gangs. This protest ended like many others – not with Pokémon, but with violence, tear gas and rubber bullets.

In the old days, people would walk the streets and distribute leaflets to communicate their political causes. These days, the political messages have moved to the cloud, with images sent directly to recipients’ phones – unsolicited. On Hong Kong subways, people have been receiving posters inviting them to protest through the service that allows Apple devices to send files to each other. The latest call to action involved a general strike that was held on Monday.

The tool has also been used to communicate with tourists from mainland China. China’s Great Firewall has largely limited reports on the Hong Kong protests to those in line with government views. This includes information found on social media such as Douyin, China’s version of TikTok. 

Not all forms of protest communication are as inventive, though. Much of the hard work of organising protests has been done on more traditional online forums such as LIHKG, dubbed the Hong Kong Reddit.