Google has a “moral obligation” to cease a democracy protest music showing in search outcomes, Hong Kong’s chief stated Tuesday, as row over China’s nationwide anthem widened to incorporate the tech big.

Hong Kong officers have been infuriated by a collection of errors at worldwide sporting occasions in latest weeks when a protest music has been performed as an alternative of China’s nationwide anthem for town’s athletes.

Their ire has more and more targeted on Google after it emerged that the protest music “Glory to Hong Kong” routinely seems on the high of the web page when folks seek for Hong Kong’s anthem.

City chief John Lee advised reporters on Tuesday that Google ought to guarantee China’s nationwide anthem — which town’s athletes compete below — comes on the high of the search web page.

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“If any company is in anyway responsible, it has that moral obligation,” he stated.

“There are ways to do it,” Lee added.

Lee’s feedback got here a day after Hong Kong’s safety chief Chris Tang stated Google had refused to vary the search outcomes, one thing he stated was a problem of “great regret”.

According to Tang, a former police chief, Google stated its search engine outcomes had been ruled by an algorithm, not human enter.

Both Tang and Lee have countered that Google has been keen to amend search outcomes to abide by native legal guidelines, together with privateness legal guidelines within the European Union.

Lee stated his administration would attain out once more to Google to pursue the matter.

Google has not but responded to requests for remark.

China’s nationwide anthem is “March of the Volunteers”, a rousing music born out of the Communist Party’s wrestle to liberate the nation from Japanese occupation.

“Glory to Hong Kong” was penned throughout enormous protests that swept Hong Kong in 2019 and have become massively common inside the metropolis.

It is now all however unlawful to sing the music or play its melody below a sweeping nationwide safety regulation that was imposed to crush these protests.