“This is the most unjust and unacceptable thing that has happened to me,” Chan said in a video he posted on Instagram on Thursday night.
He is in the fourth year of social work studies at the Hong Kong College of Technology, and one of four members of the YouTube channel JFFT, popular among Hong Kong teens, which has 129,000 subscribers.
The channel hosts hour-long live streams, where the team talks about a range of topics from gaming, music, current affairs and sports to pop culture.
The hosts encourage audience members to call in and chat with them and their language is often laced with profanities.
Chan hosted a three hour-long live stream on the topic of prostitution two days before he started at the school.
He invited the audience to call in to share their experiences of hiring sex workers, sometimes going into graphic detail.
Enraged fans named a school run by the Lok Sin Tong Benevolent Society, Kowloon, as the one that had sacked Chan.
The charity on Friday denied claims that teachers had petitioned for Chan’s dismissal, but did not directly identify the school involved.
Hong Kong cabby’s YouTube videos attract viewers, inspire others to drive taxis
The organisation said it had provided internship opportunities for students from the Hong Kong College of Technology since 2022 and would continue to do so despite this “one-off event.”
“After investigations by the school into reports and online comments that teachers had petitioned to dismiss the intern, we concluded that is not true,” it said.
The charity added teachers from the school had given details of Chan’s online behaviour to his college, which it said it would look into.
Chan Cheuk-hay, the college principal, on Friday said that staff were in constant communication with the secondary school, which they did not name, and added that “different people have different opinions on what is acceptable”.
The college pledged its support for Chan and said they had arranged a more suitable internship placement for him and believed the same problems would not arise again.
The principal said the college had no concerns about his professionalism or abilities and had encouraged him to explore different ways to carry out social work in the digital age.
“We understand that his speech on social media is aimed at his target audience, encouraging those in need to share their experience and guiding them towards positivity,” he added.
‘Crypto investors need education’: Hong Kong YouTuber after JPEX allegations
Chan said in his Instagram video that the school’s teachers and management were already aware of his YouTube role before he started his position, and that he had minimal contact with pupils over his two days there.
“The vice-principal even told me on my first day that each person has different sides to them and he believed I have the professional capacity,” he said.
Chan added that the school did not allow him to take on cases.
He said, although pupils recognised him from his videos, he insisted they address him as “Mr Chan” instead of “Bed Gor” to emphasise his professional status at the school.
“For this internship, I dyed my hair and bought new clothes and accepted many unreasonable demands, but it turned out like this,” he said in a social media post.
“This is very hard to accept, I feel so powerless and I want to cry.”
