Having worked for a newspaper in mainland China, Fang Kecheng is no stranger to how Beijing maintains its grip on news and information. Still, the former journalist was perturbed by the online abuse he received after broaching Hong Kong politics.
Seizing on his posts on Facebook and Weibo, Fang's detractors have accused him of betraying China after he shared stories about the unrest in Hong Kong.
Fang said he has been bombarded with thousands of abusive messages. He quoted one as saying: "Have you not burned to death yet?"
The barrage of angry messages highlights the pressure mainland Chinese commentators face to toe the official line when speaking about sensitive topics including the Hong Kong protests, which have been categorically repudiated in mainland China's state-controlled media outlets.
Famed Chinese MMA fighter Xu Xiaodong received home visits from the Chinese authorities after he said "not all Hong Kong protestors are rioters" in August.
In October, a Chinese lawyer, Chen Qiushi, said that most of his mainland social media accounts were taken down after he shared dispatches from Hong Kong as a citizen journalist.
Fang, a former journalist with the Guangzhou-based liberal newspaper Southern Weekly who nowteaches journalism at a Hong Kong university, said he received comments accusing him of promoting separatism.
In the months of Hong Kong protests, triggered by popular opposition to a now-withdrawn extradition bill, demonstrators have mostly called for greater police accountability and democratic reform.
Only a small minority of people in the former British colony, which returned to Chinese rule as a highly autonomous city, support the notion of an independent Hong Kong, according to a recent opinion poll.
Since he arrived in the city this August for the job, Fang said that he has remained largely an observer of the protests.
"I mostly shared first-person accounts from the front-line journalists, many produced by my colleagues. I care greatly about our campus and want to know what is going on," he said in an article titled "My five days as a subject of internet violence."
"If sharing news reports is a crime, then you might as well label all people sharing Hong Kong protests news as 'separatists.'" Fang wrote.
Fang said he has shared an episode of This American Life on his Facebook page (which is blocked in mainland China) featuring interviews with both supporters and critics of the protests that "enhanced understanding and exchange between all sides."
Despite actively sharing third-party updates, Fang says he has only personally written a total of two posts about the unrest. One was a story about how volunteer drivers sent his students home amid traffic disruptions.
In the other post, he said there were no systemic hate crimes in Hong Kong committed against mainlanders like himself.
Fang did not respond to requests for comment.
In his article, published on Monday on WeChat, Fang also said he opposes Hong Kong independence and objects to the violence seen in the past few months on the city's streets.
But he also saw violence as a "symptom" of the city's ills, emphasizing the need to address deeper issues in society in addition to carrying out law enforcement actions.
Phoebe Zhang contributed reporting.
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