HK online news outlet Initium to relocate to Singapore

Hong Kong online news outlet Initium will be relocating to Singapore due to fading press freedom, according to a post on its website. 

Initium's decision to leave the Hong Kong market came yesterday and Initium executive editor Susie Wu said in the post that over the past six years, the road to freedom "has become tougher and more dangerous" and the world "is increasingly polarised and antagonistic". 

Wu said Initium will be relocating to Singapore and will adopt an "online, decentralised approach to creating content". Post relocation, Initium will report news on China, Hong Kong and Taiwan as per usual. Meanwhile, Initium will allow readers to use non-fungible token and virtual currency to pay. 
Currently, Initium has about 60,000 paying subscribers. Wu added in the final part of the post, "We believe that no matter where we are, when the freedom in our hearts is connected, we can create larger space for it."

Initium is one of the first few local media outlets leaving Hong Kong post the introduction of the national security law. Meanwhile, in June, Apple Daily was compelled to shut after Hong Kong's secretary for security John Lee ordered HK$18 million worth of assets from Apple Daily Limited, Apple Daily Printing Limited and AD Internet Limited to be frozen. Apple Daily's editor-in-chief and four directors were also arrested for alleged collusion with foreign forces.

According to CNA, some international media companies, including AFP, have had their regional headquarters in Hong Kong thanks to the city's business-friendly regulations and free speech provisions written into the Basic Law. However in recent times, some companies such as the New York Times announced its plan to move hub in Asia from Hong Kong to Seoul after the law was enacted.

Meanwhile several big tech companies also expressed their concern over Hong Kong’s evolving data-protection laws earlier this year and were mulling an exit. However, Hong Kong chief executive Carrie Lam has briskly brushed off the concerns. Lam told reporters that the law would be targeted at “illegal doxxing” will “empower the privacy commissioners to investigate and carry out operations. She also likened the new data privacy move to that of national security law which was imposed in Hong Kong last year after the 2019 protests.

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