Tactics and methods surrounding the 2019–2020 Hong Kong protests

[2][10] Starting from August, protesters embraced a hit-and-run tactic (or flexible, "be water" approach to converging at assembly points and dispersing again) when the police began to ban requests for demonstrations.

Political analyst Kenneth Chan believed that ultimately, these daily life protests would "[breed] a sense of self-determination and solidarity against the government" for Hong Kong people.

[22] Tens of thousands attended the rallies, in support of the protest actions of the younger generation, while standing firm together in opposition to police brutality, Carrie Lam, and the intervention of the mainland Chinese government.

[27][28][29] A study about the on-going protests by researchers from several Hong Kong universities found that "most of the participants agreed that 'the maximum impact could only be achieved when peaceful assembly and confrontational actions work together.

[43][44] As protests continued to escalate and the police began to use higher levels of riot control weaponry, activists upgraded their makeshift gear including using surfboards as shields.

Peaceful protesters chanted slogans, passed supplies, and volunteered as medics, while frontliners led the charge, extinguished tear gas with water, or neutralised them using objects such as traffic cones and kitchenware.

[46][48] Protesters have used laser pointers to distract the police, sprayed paint on surveillance cameras, and unfurled umbrellas to protect and conceal the identities of the group in action and to avoid facial recognition.

[49] When protesters departed via MTR, they often made piles of extra changes of clothes for other activists, and left money to purchase single-use tickets and avoid tracking via Octopus cards.

[75][76] In January 2020, during a period where protesters attempted to pressurise the government to shut down its border with mainland China, unexploded bombs were seized and defused by the police in Lo Wu and Shenzhen Bay control point.

Companies linked to the Chinese mainland have been targeted with graffiti and posters amid rising frustration that the Hong Kong government is failing to address demands of the protesters.

[135] Some protesters used various instruments including street-side railings, traffic cones, barricades and rubbish bins to blockade the roads which stopped a number of vehicles from passing through.

[138][139] Starting in late June, it became somewhat a standard practice that peaceful marches during the day transformed into more radical direct actions at night, often targeting police stations with street protests, blockades, and vandalism.

The idea to have a free and communal "late night concert" initially spread from the LIHKG forum,[156] and has caught on as a regular act of solidarity and way to air grievances in an interactive manner.

[163] More than 167,000 students, alumni and teachers from all public universities and one in seven secondary schools in Hong Kong, including St. Francis' Canossian College which Carrie Lam attended, also launched online petitions against the extradition bill in a snowballing campaign.

[165] Former government executives, including Anson Chan, the former Chief Secretary for Administration, issued several open letters to Carrie Lam, urging her to respond to the five core demands raised by protesters.

Yellow shops close to each other will occasionally join to organise crossover promotions, and some have collaborated with pro-democratic District Councilors to set up Lunar New Year Fairs across the city in January 2020.

Simon Shen, a political scientist, suggested that the Economic Circle could be an example of "identity economy" and predicted that the businesses involved could enjoy a "potential market worth of more than HK$100 billion".

It is anticipated this economic movement on politics will be ongoing and have a longer term influence.The Communications Authority received approximately 12,000 complaints criticising TVB's coverage for favouring the pro-establishment camp and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

[174] After an advertisement satirising police brutality appeared on the company's Facebook page, the local franchise of Japanese fast-food chain Yoshinoya said it had severed ties with their partnering marketing agency.

[175] Protesters also started an online campaign named "Bye Buy Day HK", which urged activists to spend less money on every Friday and Saturday and avoided shopping or dining at pro-Beijing firms.

[193] Some protesters have waved the United States flag[194] in support of the prospective introduction of the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act, a bill proposed by the US Congress.

[1] Protesters have also been using Telegram, an optionally end-to-end encrypted messaging service,[204][205] to communicate to conceal identities and try to prevent tracking by the Chinese government and Hong Kong Police Force.

[214] Within the Citizens' press conference (see below), a group on Telegram is devoted to countering the "Pro-Beijing trolls – the so-called 50-cent army, named for the price they are supposedly paid for each post" plus the "state-backed media and botnets [who] have been employed to pump out huge quantities of disinformation and misinformation, designed to undermine the protesters as rioters and stooges of foreign powers".

On the other hand, we post more in-depth articles on online forums like Reddit and Quora, where we want to establish meaningful conversations for people around the world to understand the situation in Hong Kong," she said.

[221] As of 20 December 2019, the Office of the Privacy Commissioner for Personal Data (PCPD), a statutory body of the Hong Kong government, had received reports of or discovered 4,359 cases of doxing relating to the protests.

[239][240] Because AirDrop creates a direct link between local devices, the technology bypasses mainland China's censorship efforts[240][241] that have distorted and limited information about extradition bill protests.

[248] In addition to launching a crowdfunding campaign to place advertisement in major international newspapers, Hong Kong residents also raised funds to support the legal fees and the medical expenses for the detainees and the injured protesters respectively.

[254][255] The advertisements were printed in the local languages of the readership for each periodical, and while graphic design and layout varies, most included the slogan and appeal to "Stand with Hong Kong at G20" along with the open letter.

The proceeds were used to again place open letters as full-page ads in 13 major international newspapers including the Globe and Mail, New York Times, Le Monde, El Mundo, and Kyunghyang Shinmun.

[215] Industry experts considered the advertisement campaign of the protesters as more effective than one which the Hong Kong government launched after the announcement of the withdrawal of the extradition bill in September 2019, in which it aimed to reassure investors and encourage visitors.