Hong Kong is a major receiving country for migrant workers, particularly women from Southeast Asia who work as domestic assistants or caregivers. One in five Hong Kong households employs migrant domestic workers (Sim 2003, 479) and there are over three hundred thousand migrant domestic workers in the country, with just about half of them from Indonesia (Amnesty International 2013). The Asian Migrant Centre (2007, 6) claims that Hong Kong is the premium destination for Indonesian migrant workers because of its moderately higher salaries, the perception of superior laws and regulations and an ambience of independence. Previous research on Indonesian migrant workers’ lives in Hong Kong has mostly focused on the relationship between migrant workers and law, human rights and inequality, gender issues, political action and civil rights (Lai 2007; Ignacio and Mejia 2009; Liu 2010). However, there has been very little significant research relating Indonesian female domestic workers’ activities to social media activism.

In Indonesia and Hong Kong the governments do not play an active role in controlling social media. Hence, both regions share similarities of easily accessible social media. In Indonesia, in particular, new media has impacted on political processes (Nugroho and Syarief 2013). Similarly, in Hong Kong, social media played a pivotal role in publicizing the Umbrella Revolution – the youth- led protest movement of 2014. ‘The activists treated social media and new media as their basic information source’ (Lee and Ting 2015, 382). Social media provides opportunities as a source for knowledge and for building community. Furthermore, the reach of social media provides a wider potential for impact and transnational connections.

Indonesian migrant domestic workers (IMDWs) in Hong Kong are heavy social media users. Most use Facebook as their communication channel with fellow migrants from Indonesia. They are live- in maids and generally work in households for more than twelve hours per day. Most cannot go outside without the permission of their employers. Female migrant domestic workers are routinely secluded in the employers’ households, and this can constitute a challenge for them in negotiating their collective diasporic identity. Facebook, accessed via mobile phones, provides the opportunity for these women to create status updates and wait for responses from fellow migrant workers.