“We shall not flag or fail, we shall go on to the end”

Abstract Focusing on the anti-extradition bill protests in Hong Kong, this article presents an analysis of Twitter posts adopting hashtags #antiELAB, #NoChinaExtradition and #HongKongProtests. The explores public narrative among collective identity Hongkongers opposing extradition as events unfolded during mid-2019 Kong. To do so, we adopt Bhatia’s (2015) multi-perspective framework for Discourse Illusion, which takes a three-prong approach to study argument construction establishing legitimacy. Specifically, through interrelated components (1) historicity, (2) linguistic semiotic action, (3) social impact, dimensions hashtag that emerged were explored.