Recommendations on managing new media to be posted online
By May Wong, Channel NewsAsia | Posted: 20 August 2008 2041 hrs
SINGAPORE : Recommendations on how new media should be managed would be posted online for public feedback.
According to the Advisory Council on the Impact of New Media on Society, this will be done later this month on its new website. The council was appointed in March last year.
Whether it is using the Internet to campaign for the presidency or blogging to connect with people, using new media technologies to get a message across has become a norm. And it is no different for Singapore, as it prepares to change its rules governing materials like political films and podcasts.
Cheong Yip Seng, chairman of the Advisory Council on the Impact of New Media on Society, said: "Technology has changed rapidly. We know that social conditions in Singapore have changed and people want greater space for expression.
"So the (current) laws that govern political discourse online... are dated, and they need to be updated. So that's one part.
"The more problematic part is how do we, in the process of opening up, come up with some ways of reducing, minimising, if not cut it off completely, this abuse of this technology."
So the council is looking into minimising political abuse in the age of new media and how to better protect young people.
Two other significant areas in the council's report are how to encourage greater use of the new technology for public and government interactions, and providing legal protection to companies against defamation.
"If our proposals are accepted, I think it'll be quite a major step, in terms of opening up the space for political participation. We have spent an awful lot of time working on this. We are reasonably pleased with what we've done but we don't have a monopoly," said Cheong.
He added: "I hope the general public will step forward and robustly scrutinise what we are suggesting and find ways to help us improve on our ideas. This cannot be the final chapter of the saga. I think there would probably be a need to further review whatever changes that are made, a few years down the road."
Separately, Channel NewsAsia's current affairs programme "Insight" also spoke to politicians, social activists and analysts on "Politics in a Digital Age".
Among them is avid blogger Foreign Affairs Minister George Yeo, who is now on Facebook too.
Sharing his views on legislating cyberspace, the role of traditional media and what people want in an increasingly borderless environment, Mr Yeo said: "They want to know the (original) position, but they also may want to know the alternative views and the speculative positions.
"In Singapore, it's important that we maintain a direct line of communication between government and the people, and the traditional media plays a very important role in doing that."
You can catch more of the interviews on "Insight" on Channel NewsAsia at 8.30pm local time on August 21.
------------------------------------------------
The reason why I posted this piece of news, is that there is an obvious and important issue here.
If you people can still recall, there is this joker Durai who sued everyone trying to expose his NKF for whole long period of several years using defamation. Now in the USA, there was obvious legal protection online for people who expose and comment on companies and so on.
If you check STOMP, Tomorrow.sg and many bloggers, there have massive complains and expressions of disturbance towards the services including to hotels, Singtel and the telcos, plus even Time-shares coy, media coys and so on. Do they need more protection from defamation when they have the connections and the resources to do the right things instead of copying Durai's evil ways by making a fool out the court to protect him?
How of you, of your friends, your relatives who have exposes companies for ill doings, for their abuses and misdeeds in Singapore?
My main concern here is Mr Cheong Yip Seng seems to be the very person who was with SPH which have stopped TT Durai rampage, and now someone who used to be with SPH, recommended by Mr Tony Tan, was suggesting this piece:
"To protect Companies from defamation."
Now may I ask the people and the gahmen, and fellow YPs...
Have Mr Cheong ever thought of first protecting the small people, and small consumers, first before the eagerness to protect companies which are getting more and more reckless in Singapore, especially after the Durai saga? How could Mr Cheong be making this sort of recommendation to the gahmen knowing full well the destructiveness of an evil company could be?
It only serves to provide evil companies with more tools to silent the public, and raise animosity towards a then seemingly incompetent gahmen which helps harbor or cook more scandals, isn't it?
And besides, will this have any impact on the bloggers of which many have their own online diaries hosted in international hosting services and embrace the world with Mr Cheong's intention?
Given the influence of USA in their development of Internet legislation while they can omit international laws but cover reasonably ahead of Singapore, will Mr Cheong's recommendation be on par?
Why do I get the idea that he is more keen to protect the companies when given the recent fiascos that it is the people, under the international laws of which internet is serving the world, who needs the protection instead?
Are we trying to silent or exterminate future White Knights so that we can protect more Durai-s and his sort of simpletons by having Singapore to regulate a device shared by the world?
How can we maintain a direct line with the people as BG Yeo said that we introduce defamation unilaterally into internet, and possibly the global blogosphere?
And last, but certainly not least, will this feedback session be similar as what had happened at the Casinos' issues?
It's a really major step because we are talking about a step that is possibly going to follow Malaysia's, which will have total disregards to cyber-common sense; which will also be disturbing since it is likely to be a back stride made.
As a member of a general public, and a member of cyberspace, and within the party's forum, Elfred offers his concerns.
My basic concern is very simple. Looking at the fresh incidents of how Durai abused the court readily to harm the public in order to serve his corrupted interest, and given MM Lee is highly anti-corruption, that we have all this happening under our very eyes, it is important that we remove the idea of protecting companies from defamation since they would have enough public resources through connected parties and public advertising to refute and present their side of stories. And it highly ridiculous that the job of customer service departments should be covered by the court.
If the company cannot make the public happy, it'd serve little meaning. It'd serve even more ridiculous purpose by using defamation to make public happier...
This aspect of the recommendation is logically should be removed. And in face that bloggers are to be personal in their blogging, blogging should not be under any regulations. I heard that the PM also said something about this.
Can someone spread this throughout cyberspace before more people get hurted?
Alright, please dismiss any typos. I have found this issue catchy, which is hence I am bringing it to this populated forum for serious attention.
How many are not involved in tomorrow.sg, Omy, STOMP, blogging and even forums, complaining from Telcos to time-share coys, or even construction coys?
Can you give us a summary? kind of long and hard to read........
This is what I replied to a similar view in YPforum:
[quote="panter92"]Zzz.... summarise your arguments...[/quote]
You expect something so important and clear cut to have summary, then you are indeed too lazy for this forum...
Do you realise how many more Durai-s will be created with such a release of such recommendation?!
Do you know how many more scandals will be in the cook with such direction of regulation?
Do you know, how many at OMY, STOMP, tomorrow.sg, the various blogs and forums will be implicated?!
And do you know that tis little policy will make Singapore legal barbaric!? If this is so, you don't even need what new laws! You can just go ahead and do anything you want as the USA is doing! Why do you need even care international laws?
Which proper company aims to win the market relying on defamation lawsuits?!
Well, isn't that very obvious?
Singapore is challenging itself to be more ridiculous!
can you still summarise for us please? my browser has a problem, it doesnt show more than 20 lines of words and even worse for small fonts, the words dissapear from the page.
Hmm... Here's the issue, and it's not even a summary.
As we all are aware, SPH has in recent (years) stopped the dreadful Durai and his bunch of simpletons who would resort to anything to the point of shamelessness to harm the public in order to further their evil.
After this, this Mr Cheong actually, instead of thinking of protecting the people who'd have exposed or tried to stop such evil and minimised scandals from exploding in national interest, is thinking of further protecting the companies against defamation online!
And if Durai is a good person, if Durai is going to run a company proper in the interest of the state, do you even think he'd touch defamation?
The reason why Durai had touched defamation and proceed on to harm so many using the court is precisely because this sort of company are meant to harm, and Durai himself is a scoundel!
Do we need to protect resourceful and often connected companies who have easier acess to the media and relatively affordable to hire legal service instead of the small people in Singapore?
If I am not wrong, if this Mr Cheong's recommendation got through, all those who have previously touched on Singtel, M1, restaurants, Time-shares, edu centres, constructions, and such issues could be dragged in unwittedly with their participation in Omy, Tomorrow.sg, STOMP and in various blogs and forums. By right, if the government unwisely allows this, whatever before this implementation should not be considered; but who can guarantee that?
So if this piece is passed, what about other 'recommendations' in the future? Which could includ authorising tracing of all's details if secret services have not done so, and back tracing everything.
There is a problem here, and a very big one because this is chain effect coming, and it is up to those involved online to take a serious view.
By right, most of our blogs and forums if under foreign server or simply in cyberspace should not be under the sole jurisdiction of a lone country. And even USA which has total disregards to the UN, their laws develop to protect the reasonable parties.
Mr Cheong's recommendation to protect the company against defamation is hence a threat to the nation as this only inclines towards helping to protect more Durai-s, and to produce more scandals. And that the intention behind is highly questionable. Why?
Where there is virtually little protection the commoners got online and offline, why is he tipping the balance and proceed to protect the companies when it is obvious that good companies do not embrace defamation act to win over the market?
And this recommendation is pretty extra. Why do I say that? The recommendation itself is assuming that the cosmopolitan can license and contain all attentions and authoring which are to be assumed to be entirely Singaporean in nature. And we all know this is crap. Since a blog or a forum is under judgement and participation of international parties in a cyberspace. Is this the sole jurisdiction of Singapore?
If Singaporean chew gums made in China in Johore, is that the problem of Singapore court? That is regardless you can see him chew gums or not.
So this recommendation is pretty extra, because originally, we already have defamation act. If we were to be now pushing this new recommendation... it has to be doing so rather barbarically, and why do we this when Singapore can just use the current defamation act to do whatever it wants?
I am particularly very disturbed, because of Durai, and YMCA (Lam threatened the blogosphere, remember?), plus a long list of scoundels whereby Ming Yee is now under fire, and this Mr Cheong has to come out with such a unwitted recommendation to protect the companies against defamation?!
Does he think that the bloggers have the authority not to be personal entities?
We cannot afford or allow more scoundels to mess up Singapore further. This involves you people online, including me.
There is a public consultation on this. Actually, here online, I'd like to say No to that recommendation. In this, I am also saying No to old NKF. And I am saying No because it is the small people online who need the protection more!
Interesting.
You guys and gals are the participants of internet, of this forum.
Towards the possible effects online, most of you seem careless.
Instead of blaming the length of this issue here, would it possibly be that complacency is indeed among you?
What you don't bother enough, don't whine later.