MDA's Broadcast Act: What will it achieve?

OK many of my Singaporean friends and readers have asked me comment on this piece of news regardng the Broadcasting Act: http://www.straitstimes.com/breaking-news/singapore/story/new-licensing-scheme-news-websites-reach-50000-people-month-20130528

"Currently, most websites are covered automatically under a class licence scheme. But the Media Development Authority (MDA) will require websites to be individually licensed once they meet two criteria. These are: if they report an average of at least one article per week on Singapore's news and current affairs over a period of two months, and have at least 50,000 unique visitors from Singapore each month over a period of two months. The individual licenses have to be renewed every year. Ten sites currently fit the media regulator's criteria, of which seven are run by Singapore Press Holdings.The 10 are: straitstimes.com, asiaone.com, businesstimes.com.sg, omy.sg, stomp.com.sg, tnp.sg, zaobao.com as well as the sites for Today newspaper, ChannelNewsAsia and Yahoo News."

Now it is a thinly veiled attempt to try to censor Yahoo Singapore which lies outside the government controlled web of news outlets from SPH and MediaCorp. After all, take my blog for example - I do fit their criteria easily in terms of Singaporean contents and I easily exceed 50,000 unique visitors from Singapore each month over a period of two months. So why are they not bothered about blogs written by people like me who are blatantly, vehemently anti-PAP but are targetting Yahoo Singapore then? What is going on here?

The reason why I am not targeted the MDA is because they cannot silence each and every single blogger - especially those outside Singapore. They can only react when a blogger is deemed to have crossed the line by saying something defamatory on their blog against the government and they have done that already twice this year - but that is a drop in the ocean compared to the amount of anti-PAP rhetoric spouted by Singaporeans on a daily basis on Facebook. Indeed, each time they have tried to use the law to protect their reputation, it generates far more hate and derision from netizens. Seriously, PAP who does your PR? You seriously need to hire a decent PR agent to handle your public image. Oh do you not care just how tarnished your PR image is from all this?

What can the PAP gain from trying to censor Yahoo Singapore? Surely other Yahoo websites (which are not Singapore specific) can still report on the news in Singapore and there is nothing to stop a Singaporean from accessing the news from an international source like the BBC or CNN? Besides, haven't the government realized that the way people access their news has changed so much since the 1990s - there is everything from Facebook to Twitter to endless number of forums online where people share and exchange information before a journalist even has the time to write about it, run it by his editor and get it published. Something can happen in Singapore and I can learn about it within seconds later if I am following the right Twitter feed or if a friend puts up a Facebook status update.

Can you censor the internet? 

This is why my mother is astonished that I probably know more about the news in Singapore than she does because she doesn't use the internet at all (well, she is very old lah) and the only way she accesses the news is by reading the Straits Times or by watching the news on TV. For people like my mother, this piece of legislation doesn't affect her as she is not an internet user to begin with ; and it doesn't affect younger internet savvy Singaporeans already as they usually don't wait for a piece of news to be filtered through a news website like Yahoo Singapore before actually learning about it through social media. So who does it affect then? Nobody, really. As a piece of legislation to censor opposition dissent, it is as useless as a one legged man in a kicking contest.

Take the recent story about the 29 year old employee who was videoed being slapped repeatedly in the face by Alan Lee, the owner of Encore eServices - this was a classic internet story that went viral and crossed over into the mainstream. This story took on a life of its own after netizens became interested in this video and it was in the sharing of this video on social media - did Singaporeans wait for an official organization like SPH or Mediacorp to tell them what to make of the story? No, even before everyone had the facts, people were actively discussing about the case online (including on my blog) and this reflects the way the younger generation of Singaporeans feel about the news. They are not passive consumers like my mother who wait to be what to think by the Straits Times - no, they want a far more interactive relationship and they want to have a say in the outcome of the piece of news.

It was amazing how quickly this story went viral!

Staying with the Alan Lee of Encore eServices case, many Singaporeans who read about the case did leave a comment on Facebook, on Twitter, on blogs like mine as well as on other various websites (Stomp, EDMW, AsiaOne) where they were able to have their say on the issue. Many demanded to know the identity of the 'supervisor' who repeatedly struck the worker in the face. This is a far cry from when my mother looking up from her copy of the Straits Times over her coffee and nasi lemak to make a comment to me about an interesting story she had just read. By that token, journalists are dealing with a very different kind of readership in 2013 - they have to provide more than just factual content, but insight and analysis into the stories they are reporting.

So would effectively censoring Yahoo Singapore's news reporting change anything in this context? The simple answer is no - it is a token gesture by the government, a bit of muscle flexing that shows that they are still old school on the issue of press censorship and the freedom of speech. Yahoo Singapore would simply scale back their news reporting to make sure they do not cross the line in order to protect their $50,000 performance bond - don't forget, this won't really affect Yahoo much as their main source of revenue is from advertising and they are still going to get that even if their local news output is very tame. Yahoo is a commercial entity - they have no interest in Singaporean politics, their priorities are their profit margins. In any case, the journalists Yahoo Singapore were never that critical of the Singaporean government to begin with - they were however, an independent news outlet that was not regulated by the Singaporean government so there was the possibility until now for them to be critical of the Singaporean government.

So what will happen after the 1st of June when the Broadcast Act comes into law? Well, not that much really. It is just a gesture that is painfully embarrassing for the Singaporean government because it just exposes just how ignorant and out of touch they are when it comes to news and the internet. I just get the feeling that the person who came up with this silly piece of ineffective legislation is a painfully old man/woman who is totally out of touch with modern technology.

Here's the problem with politics - the people in charge tend to be rather on the old side, they're not young tech-savvy people under the age of 30. My 10 year old nephew knows far more about technology than my parents in their 70s - it is painful just how ignorant of technology my mother can be at times. She is afraid of composing a text message on a mobile phone because she is afraid she might 'break' the phone if she presses the wrong button. Groan - yes I tried telling her that the only way she could break the phone if dropped it down the stairs but there you go. Yes I know some older people are good with technology, but for those who are not, they should be humble enough to delegate this responsibility to others who can come up with intelligent, workable solutions.

If the Singaporean government really wanted to censor the news, well they have to go a lot further and try to control social media - they would mean going down the same route as China where Twitter, Youtube and Facebook (along with many other websites) are banned. Why not just do what North Korea does and that's the only country where the people are properly brainwashed by their national propaganda. What you have in Singapore is a pretty poor compromise - it is an ineffective measure to try to censor dissent which simply does not achieve its desired effect. In fact, the only effect they have achieved is embarrassing themselves: the Singaporean government clearly wants to censor our media but doesn't understand internet technology well enough to know how to do it properly. So much for Singapore being a high-tech country when the government can't even legislate effectively on an issue like that.

One side effect that this episode is that Singaporeans are reminded just how ridiculously censored their local news is - this is increasingly going to drive them to sources of alternative news which are beyond the reach of this Broadcast Act. Blogs like mine, Facebook, Twitter and other websites based outside Singapore are going to see an increase in traffic from Singaporeans seeking the truth. Many Singaporeans are already shunning traditional news websites for news in favour of social media. This is simply going to accelerate the process. Websites like TheRealSingapore and The Online Citizen will simply continue to have a presence on Facebook even if their websites do disappear as a result of this act.  You can't just censor news in the age of the internet, yet the PAP still acts like it is 1984.

This piece of legislation does not cover personal blogs. 

In my humble opinion, this is a missed opportunity - if the PAP wanted to boost their popularity, they could have made some effort to engage these alternative news sources and be a part of their conversation. Alternatively, they could try to challenge them and I have seen some pretty poor articles being featured on both The Real Singapore and The Online Citizen - after all, they mostly source articles from other places and they have featured some really poorly written articles (shockingly bad English, incorrect facts, xenophobic anti-foreigner bigotry etc) in the past. Then again, just because they are flawed doesn't mean that they should be censored - rather, they should be allowed to exist but be challenged to improve themselves. They should be allowed the chance to earn that credibility they want, rather than be labelled as something so toxic it should be snuffed out by the law.

So here we go - that's my take on the situation. Yahoo Singapore's news is going to be a bit more bland, some websites may evolve into entirely social media entities and bloggers like me may get more traffic, but in reality, little will change on the ground in Singapore and by that token, this piece Broadcast Act will be another white elephant that will cost the government a lot of time and money to implement but will actually achieve very little. Here's the irony: if it actually serves the PAP some purpose (at the expense of freedom of speech), then at least I can see why they want to do this - but it really doesn't. The Broadcast Act is only going to censor Yahoo Singapore, not social media where the bulk of the "fuck the PAP" dissent occurs. What is the point of a piece of legislation if it is going to do that little even for the PAP then? Sure that time and money can be better spent on other more pressing issues - such as education or housing? Who will actually benefit from the Broadcast Act?

Are ordinary citizens served by this piece of legislation? No. Clearly not. 

It's just another own goal by the very old people of PAP who just don't understand how the internet works, tsk tsk tsk, will they ever learn. As usual, leave a comment, let Limpeh know what you think, thanks for reading!