🌊 Free Tide: Vitasoy gets cancelled in China
🌊 Free Tide: Vitasoy gets cancelled in China
Biggest ever drop for Hong Kong beverage company's shares
Good morning
I think we all understand why TikTokers and YouTubers get cancelled. But apparently, it’s now normal for multi-million dollar corporations to get cancelled too. What strange times we live in.
Will Vitasoy also be forced to make a teary-eyed apology video?
~ Sze Yu
Vitasoy shares plunge
Shares of Vitasoy plummeted on Monday morning as the company came under fierce criticism from Chinese netizens. An unauthorised internal memo, which expressed condolences to the family of an employee who killed himself after attacking a policeman, provoked an aggressive response on Chinese social media. Netizens accused the company of “supporting a terrorist“ and called for a boycott —by Sunday, #Vitasoygetoutofthemainland already accounted for 100m views on Weibo.
Chinese actor Gong Jun also announced on Weibo that he had decided to end all collaboration with Vitasoy. Vitasoy earns approximately 2/3 of its revenue from mainland China.
In a series of Weibo statements, Vitasoy said it “fully supported” a probe under the national security law into the incident and would conduct its own internal investigation. Vitasoy shares ended the day trading at 25.95 HKD, down 11.7% from the same time on Friday.
COVID news
Coronavirus in Hong Kong
New cases: 1 (imported)
Total cases: 11,944 cases so far (94 active cases, 212 total deaths, 11,638 total recovered)
The first patient found with the Beta variant COVID strain in Hong Kong has been jailed for 3 months for lying to health authorities(paywalled). His girlfriend was handed a sentence of 20 days. Both defendants pled guilty to disrupting contact-tracing efforts by lying to officials about their whereabouts.
The pair created an infection cluster that grew to 11 cases, causing the quarantining of 1,600 residents and two rounds of mandatory COVID testing for the city's 370,000 domestic helpers.
Other updates
Current affairs programme The Pulse is the latest show to be axed by RTHK. In recent months RTHK has faced heavy criticism from the government for its “biased reporting“. Since Patrick Li Pak-chuen stepped in as Director of Broadcasting in March, at least ten episodes of various shows have been censored and multiple popular current affairs shows have been axed.
Hong Kong Police have arrested a 19-year-old student over an arson attack near the Government House last week. Police said gas canisters and bottles containing petrol landed on the grassy area leading to the residence in the early hours of Thursday morning. The woman, accused of scouting the targeted site with her boyfriend, is the second suspect to be detained in three days.
Last week’s hotel cleaner COVID case has been reclassified as being linked to an imported one. Hong Kong’s 28 day run of zero local COVID cases remains intact!
Hong Kong Design Centre announces the appointment of Dr Joseph Wong as its new Executive Director. Dr Wong most recently served as the Vice Principal of Hong Kong Design Institute (HKDI) and Deputy Academic Director – Design Discipline of the Vocational Training Council (VTC).
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