Police in Vietnam have arrested a prominent blogger for anti-state activities, reports say.
Pham Viet Dao, 61, was arrested in Hanoi on Thursday for “abusing democratic freedoms”, the Ministry of Public Security said.
Mr Dao ran a blog critical of government leaders and policies, and discussed sensitive issues like the territorial row with China.
His arrest comes after another blogger was detained in May on similar charges.
Blogger Ravi Philemon addressed the rally: “The Media Development Authority should take its hands off the online world because it is the most open public space Singaporeans have right now,” he said. “The regulation will only give the government unlimited power to act arbitrarily against the interests of Singaporeans.”*
The other speakers also spoke along the same lines and the crowd there on 8 June cheered them on.
It’s precisely because the cyberspace is the most open public space Singaporeans have right now that the govt wants unlimited power over it, though the govt would disagree that it wants the power to act arbitrarily against the interests of Singaporeans: it would argue that it wants the power to protect us.
In the political sphere, there has been no open space since 1959: Nothing has changed. Opposition leader and secretary-general of the Singapore Democratic Party Chee Soon Juan expressed concerns that the government was trying to stifle political opponents online and said that there was a danger that the government could be seen as “trying to regulate the opposition’s means of communicating with voters before the next elections”.*
In the field of public social behaviour, S’pore has had “NO” spitting, littering, smoking and other such campaigns. While these attempts to curb uncivil and unhygienic public behaviour (a plus), they are the use of arbitrary power.
There there have been the various social engineering projects (birth control, “graduate she-rabbits”, “Breed for S’pore”, “Speak Mandarin”, “Foreign Trash Talents Welcome”, the destruction of Chinese language education system etc etc) that are premised on the use of arbitrary power.
In S’pore, even nature is not allowed to run its course, land use is too precious to allow that. All our streams are improved with the addition of concrete banks to prevent soil erosion and ensure that they flow straight into the sea. There are sea walls all around the island to protect vulnerable spots from erosion.
The speakers and their audience may not realise it, but their call for “open public space” and the end to the use of arbitrary power is a challenge to the very foundations of the way S’pore has been governed since its founding, and especially since 1959.
It is akin to:
– the anti-colonial, anti-capitalist agitation of the communists and allies;
– Tan Wah Piow’s efforts; or
– the “Marxists’ conspiracy”.
In the days when one Harry was sheriff, judge and jury, the speakers and audience would be in “Cold Store”, and denounced publicly as subversives, running dogs and stooges of fat capitalist cat Yahoo!
While the curbing of “public space” and the use of arbitrary power is still par for the course, Harry’s Law isn’t used nowadays. Some things have changed, and for the better.
Another example of change for the better is that the internet regulations are not imposed on the likes of TOC, TRE, yet. In the olden days, Harry wouldn’t want to waste a good law on juz Yahoo!
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*http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2013/06/201368112023976117.html
“The regulations deal with news sites. It doesn’t encompass blogs but would some blogs become news sites, and if they evolve to become news sites, I think that is something that we need to look at. As a broad principle, it is meant to cover those reporting news. Individual blogs, commentaries — that remains open,” Tan Chuan Jin.
Pooh Bear (“the bear with the little brain”, no, not Tin Peh Ling), and surely Bertha Henson and Arun Mahizhnan, or even me, can make out a intellectually honest and rational case in support of the distinction; a very traditional concept in the Anglo-American media world.
The Guardian newspaper in the UK (almost looney left: “Tories are evil and stupid” ) has two related mantras “Facts are sacred”, “Comment is free”, that encapsulate what the minister is saying: there is a distinction between news and commentary. The BBC and American media adhere almost religiously (in the case of the Americans) to this very traditional concept in their coverage. However, UK papers (even the Guardian) increasingly tend to mix facts with analysis and commentary: so does Fox News.
Problem with the distinction that Tan Chuan-Jin attempts to draw between blogs and news doesn’t take into account Yaacob’s definition of a “Singapore news programme”, which is defined so widely as to cover any material to do with Singapore, not juz “newsa”. The definition of “Singapore news programmes” includes “any programme containing any news, intelligence, report of occurrence, or any matter of public interest, about any social, economic, political, cultural, artistic, sporting, scientific or any other aspect of Singapore,” though “does not include any programme produced by or on behalf of the government.”
So my blogging about gardens in the sky would meet the above definition of “Singapore news programme”, if the authorities wanted to include said article or topic under the definition.
It’s what they want to catch (at any one time) that matters, and should be of concern to every S’porean and FT.
Another way of putting it is that the “news” on S’pore that MoM is talking about is not the same as “Singapore news programme”. There is a serious disconnect between the two terms. And he should know it.
As MoM is the govt’s point man on presenting the “right” perspective on controversial issues, and one of the next generation of potential PMs (eat yr heart out non-Chinese rooting for Tharman), why was he badly briefed by Yaacob & MDA? Could it be that the chairman and CEO of the MDA were distracted* by what is happening to interest rates and property prices in the light of weak equity and bond markets?
Or is MoM being saboed?
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*They each bought $5-10m apartments recently
Only two cheers because the MDA, ISD, police intelligence unit and local media are giving three cheers for the blackout, they don’t have to monitor the usual suspects. In fact, they are taking the day off and taking their kids for an outing. And ministers too are toasting the blackout: they don’t have to listen to the noise the MDA etc report. They can remove the ear plugs and listen to the sounds of nature.
It’s a gd day to be on the Dark Side.
Sadly for the Dark Side, it only lasts a day, not forever and a day. Normal levels of service (noise to them) will resume tomorrow.
Update at 9.54am: Barrie has got it dead right on the blackout:
Blacking out your own site because you are against the govt blacking you out is akin to inflicting self-injury because your adversary wants to cause you harm. You are playing into his plan. Isn’t the govt’s intention is to black out non-mainstream media in the first place?
On Thursday, ST published a front page headline that would have had “the usual suspects” bitching loudly at a TLC for wasting $ on an ang moh FT. The usual suspects ignored the issue because they were (and, sadly, still are) narcissistically looking at their reflections on their flat panel tv screens, while bawling, raving and ranting that Yaacob was (and still is) “snatching* their toys, when he did (does) no such thing*.
Back to the FT story: ST reported that a TLC had spent $8m on accommodation for an ang moh FT. Sometime back when the same TLC spent $1m on accommodating two PRC FT PRs, TRE readers and some prominent bloggers were screaming their heads off: these two PRC FT PRs getting the VIP treatment while S’poreans had to pay a few hundred thousand dollars for a three-room HDB flat.
When two pandas came here, the verbal knives of many netizens were out for the zoo for spending $1 million for their accommodation. But when ST announced that an ang moh polar bear, Inuka, had got a $8m play pen, no-one said anything.
Ang moh tua kee? Maybe, because the usual suspects buy into fashionable ang mog ideas, like freedom of the media, free speech, LGBT rights, anal sex, minimum wages, welfare, decent working conditions, free and fair and unrigged elections, accountability etc etc.
Or, as is more likely, they, like PM, but apparently unlike Auntie Sylvia, cannot multi-task?
The one that must be really feeling low and depressed must be Danny the teh-tarik loving SDP bear. He did his NS but unlike these FT bears, he has to borrow money to pay for his 99-yr “bare necessities, no-frills”cave in the sky, while they get VIP caves free.
I wish those calling for the blackout and protest the best of luck. Even though I disagree with them no the need of such actions for now, or even the need to kick up a fuss for now, if less than 5000 turn up at the protest, and only a few sites observe the blackout, the govt will think it has got the measure of the new media here: all noise and dogmatic, cannot organise an orgy in a brothel and popular support. This attitude will not be gd for S’pore. The new media, like water, should not be underestimated: it can be a raging torrent.
“Water is fluid, soft, and yielding. But water will wear away rock, which is rigid and cannot yield. As a rule, whatever is fluid, soft, and yielding will overcome whatever is rigid and hard. This is another paradox: what is soft is strong.” (Las Tzu)
Related Panda posts:
http://atans1.wordpress.com/2012/11/29/better-visit-the-pandas-quickly/
http://atans1.wordpress.com/2011/01/13/fts-i-want-here/
http://atans1.wordpress.com/2011/01/15/another-cute-pandas-pix/
http://atans1.wordpress.com/2013/04/22/great-panda-pixs/
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*He hasn’t, though he has created a framework that the govt thinks will enable the govt to control or channel new media. He is only warning them that he has the legal means of snatching their toys, so don’t be qua lan or garang like the M’sian FT protestors or PRC strikers.
One of these days, maybe, on the day of proposed blackout, I’ll blog on why Yaacob is an underrated water engineer, 50-year floods twice in two months, notwithstanding. Go to http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6964281.stm and click on the exhibit at the bottom of the page. It illustrates what the British will do when the Thames’ waters rise dangerously high: barriers rise from beneath the river’s surface. Likewise, Yaacob’s rules will do the same when the “noise” levels gets dangerously high. In the meantime, our internet flows on, like the Thames. The measures’ effectiveness are debatable given that the new media has been likened to water.
And maybe, I’ll blog on why the blackout and protests are rotten ideas: so PAPpish and old-fashioned. And I tot the usual suspects are anti-PAP and in the vanguard of doing things differently.
As Yaacob was the water minister that presided over two fifty-year floods in two months, and now as info minister has juz issued regulations governing new media (which has been likened to water), I tot I’d cheer upset netizens up with this quote from the Tao Te Ching:“Water is fluid, soft, and yielding. But water will wear away rock, which is rigid and cannot yield. As a rule, whatever is fluid, soft, and yielding will overcome whatever is rigid and hard. This is another paradox: what is soft is strong.”
Relax boys and gals. Don’t need to bawl and scream because yr favourite toy is taken away and broken, or that you kanna played-out by the govt, a govt many of you curse, despise and mistrust.
Be complacent: new media like water will find a way through. Juz be prepared to change, or adapt if your blog has 50,000 unique visitors a month. And if you don’t (like me) have that number, nothing has changed.
Stop raving, ranting and bawling. You only make PAPpies feel shiok.
Have a gd weekend instead.
And before I forget: the Media Development Authority’s comment that the new rules would bring news sites onto “a more consistent regulatory framework with traditional news platforms which are already individually licensed”, reminded me of the late 19th and early 20th century traffic rules that required a man with a red flag to walk ahead of any “horseless carriage”. Presumably, this was to ensure that the speed of these carriages were “more consistent” with the speeds of horse-drawn carriages.
We know what happened. So, no need to get emotional or irrational. Juz be complacent, “Water is fluid, soft, and yielding. But water will wear away rock, which is rigid and cannot yield. As a rule, whatever is fluid, soft, and yielding will overcome whatever is rigid and hard. This is another paradox: what is soft is strong.”
In S’pore the PAP, and its co-driver, the WP, relies on volunteers or bodies (remember Palmer’s Laura Ong and Stag Yaw’s XXX) walking the ground to bring in the votes. The other opposition parties need an equaliser (juz like the Colt revolver supposedly equalised the balance in fights in the Wild West). They could try the following ideas.
The DAP is doing this in Penang (from a Dow Jones report): Acknowledging that the DAP has been heavily outspent by BN on its home turf, DAP’s Assistant National Publicity Secretary Zairil Khir Johari said on Tuesday that his party is counting on social media to narrow its financial disadvantage and court a critical segment of active voters.
“The DAP is at the forefront of Facebook penetration,” Mr Zairil said. “We’re talking about 12 million Facebook accounts in Malaysia, and pretty much every young adult has one. Not all of them watch television. So we’re targeting Facebook and we’re doing it aggressively.”
The Internet has been a critical fund-raising and canvassing resource for the opposition as a means of circumventing tight government controls over traditional news media.
The DAP says it does not have the resources to fund conventional ad space. But on Facebook, it has rolled out 17 videos, a series of online flyers and other advertisements to reinforce traditional walkabouts and “ceramahs”, a Malay term meaning campaign road-shows.
So far, its Internet presence eclipses that of the ruling party. As of Wednesday, the DAP had 319,251 Facebook “likes” versus the BN’s 52,968. On Twitter, the DAP counts 25,141 followers, while the BN had 14,745.
But the DAP is worried that this may not be enough. The party enjoyed a stealth advantage in 2008 because the BN did not expect to lose and was caught unprepared, Mr Zairil said. This time, it is visibly muscling up.
Well the SDP and NSP might as well try the above tactics given their lack of physical presence on the ground. But the NSP has to built up its on-line presence from near zero. And the co-driver might want to try these tactics too as a force multiplier. But then it might prefer to be a co-driver, and hoping to share the goodies in a coalition (refer to Pritam’s comments).
Here’s something that one of the wannabe leaders without spear and shield carriers (like Tan Kin Lian, Tan Jee Say, s/o JBJ, Ben Pwee) might want to think about: A citizens’ movement mounting an increasingly serious challenge to the Italian political establishment has chosen its candidates for parliament in an unprecedented online vote.
Supporters of the Five Star Movement* made their selection from among 1,400 activists.
Each prospective candidate posted a campaign video in which they introduced themselves.
They set out what they stood for and what they would do if elected on behalf of the movement in polls that are scheduled for the spring.
It is believed to be the first time that a political organisation anywhere has conducted this kind of selection process entirely on the web.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-20643620
At the very least, this would get some publicity.
Here’s something up TKL’s street (remember before he became the People’s Voice, he was called by ST the “petition king”::
Sites which allow citizens to draft e-petitions for their pet causes are mushrooming. Politicians in Germany created one of the earliest, in 2005, and dozens of countries have followed, most of them within the past three years. America’s “We the People” is perhaps the most successful. Since its launch in 2011 citizens have created nearly 180,000 petitions; since November the total number of signatures has tripled to almost 12m.
Finally here’s an idea the internet savvy SDP might want to play with e.g. testing its public housing and healthcare proposals.
About 1,500 cities, including Chicago and, last year, New York, have also enlisted the public in setting budgeting priorities. In 2012 around a million citizens took part in the annual budgeting process in Rio Grande do Sul, the Brazilian state which also hosted the first such event, in the town of Porto Alegre, in 1989.
In 2011 the state governor collected 1,300 ideas for improving local health care, and then let citizens vote for their 50 favourites; 120,000 people took part. The voting software presented ideas in pairs; users could pick the one they preferred.
Actually, the govt might want to use this idea for NatCon topics to gauge public sentiment.
(The last two examples came from http://www.economist.com/news/international/21574454-internet-helps-politicians-listen-better-their-electors-if-they-want-processing)
But For all the talk about new digital technology, the real secret was finding new ways to do something old-fashioned: to talk to voters. The trick was to use new techniques for helping volunteers to find people like them. Taz how Team Obama did it in the US.
At a meeting of Battleground Texas, a new grassroots organising effort started by the former national field director for the 2012 Obama campaign, Jeremy Bird, and run by the Ohio 2012 campaign boss, Jenn Brown. Addressing a packed union hall in Austin, Ms Brown told the crowd that the project ahead of them might take until 2020, and would involve registering, persuading and turning out millions of voters. But here is how we did it in Ohio, she explained. For all the talk about new digital technology, the real secret was finding new ways to do something old-fashioned: to talk to voters. The trick was to use new techniques for helping volunteers to find people like them.
The old way of organising involved hiring 250 field organisers. On a given day before an election they might knock on 50 doors each, meaning that they knocked on 12,500 doors. The new method refined and rolled out by Team Obama in 2012 involves one paid field organiser organising perhaps five neighbourhood team leaders. Each of those volunteer team leaders might then recruit eight volunteers, recruited from a particular neighbourhood. They might all be parents from a single school catchment area, or people with similar work backgrounds or interests.
Miss Brown then clicked on her next slide. With 250 such organisers, overseeing five neighbhourhood team leaders, marshalling eight volunteers each, you can knock on 500,000 doors. It is, she noted cheerfully, “unbelievably exponential”. Nor is this a theoretical finding. On each of the last four weekends before the 2012 election, Miss Brown’s Ohio campaigners “talked physically” to 100,000 voters. That is the same as President Barack Obama’s Ohio margin of victory.
Numbers alone do not win elections. None of this is to dismiss the importance of policies and candidates. But these are numbers that grab the attention.
(Extract from an otherwise irrelevant Economist blog)
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*In Italy, the Five Star Movement holds the balance of power. As the BBC describes it “Led by its guiding star, the comedian-turned politician Beppe Grillo, it was born and bred on the internet.
But it emerged from the web and took its argument into town squares all over Italy.”
They appeared at http://veritas-lux.blogspot.sg/2013/03/social-darwinism-taking-its-toll-on.html. Thank SG Daily’s Facebook for drawing my attention to them.
The G’s ability to win the argument among netizens is increasingly in question; witness its “defeat” over the Population White Paper online. Its online outreach appears to be confined to making speeches available online and Facebook postings by individual minist. How would it deal with the barrage of messages that will flood the online space in crisis time? http://www.breakfastnetwork.sg/?p=2746ers and MPs
Couldn’t stop laughing at “The G’s ability to win the argument among netizens is increasingly in question; witness its “defeat” over the Population White Paper online.” Only someone* who works or once worked* for SPH, MediaCorp or the govt would think that cyberspace was ever friendly to the govt or even neutral. It was always injun or Vietminh or Viet Kong territory where the govt soldiers and mercenaries were besieged in forts and could only move around outside the forts in heavily armed convoys. Even our PM has conceded that the internet was made up of “cowboy towns”.
The internet and social media became relevant when the 2011 GE and PE showed that the “noises” there reflected “facts on the ground”. Contrast this with the 2006 GE, when the “noises” were noise: going on the internet, it showed that the PAP were doomed to defeat.
And I tot that “How would it deal with the barrage of messages that will flood the online space in crisis time?” had the underlying, unstated assumption that netizens were irresponsible people who could not be relied upon when there was a crisis: with the implication that only the constructive, nation-building media (and presumably retirees from it) could be trusted. This I disagree with. After all, SPH’s Stomp is not a particularly responsible online publication (it hired paid content providers who pretended to be ordinary citizen journalists, and one of them faked the news once). And based on these lapses (now corrected, we’ve been assured), it is reasonable to conclude that Alex Au, TOC, TRE, Donaldson Tan, Kum Hong, Andrew Loh, SDP etc have higher standards of integrity than Stomp. Only the TRS has Stomp-like standards, in my view.
What I suspect she means is that only SPH and MediaCorp journalists and editors (past and present) will parrot unthinkingly and uncritically the govt line. Here, there is another unstated assumption; that the govt line is the truth. The likes of Lucky Tan, S’pore Notes will (rightly in my view) etc would critique the govt view because they would have doubts.
But on the other hand, this same retired Dark Side keyboard wielding imperial storm trooper is the person behind Breakfast Network. Check it out: it tries to provide, entertaining, non-partisan tit bits for tot. Doesn’t often succeed, as the above example shows, but she is experimenting, and it’s a work-in-progress.
With TOC getting irrelevant**; Andrew Loh’s Publichouse seemingly stuck in a rut (one can only wish him well in his attempts to “tell stories”); and TRS going from strength to strength, one can only hope that the Breakfast Network works. With TRE’s mission being to provide a counter balance to the local MSM’s spin, there is room for a more centrist website that can attract a mass audience: Breakfast Network could be that website.
If she succeeds, she will have shown that Darth Vader is not the only Dark Sider who returned to the Light. In fact, she would be better than Darth Vader, because he only repented to save his son, and died in the process. She would have returned to the Light because she wanted to, and she lived.
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*I’ve heard stories from SPH insiders that she fancied herself to be next editor of ST after Han when Warren Fernandez left SPH. He was brought back when Han was moved on after the 2011 GE. She then moved on out of SPH. It had been alleged that she had tot that minister Yacoob’s sis was her only rival.
**This piece on TOC, despite being picked up, by SG Daily, didn’t have many readers. Usually when Sg Daily picks up a piece of mine, I get lots of hits.
BBC Online carried a headline on its global news Home Page linking to a story on the crowd protesting about Population White Paper http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-21485729
ST carried the story on page 4. The front page carried a story on a standard, nothing new, speech by PM. S’pore the new North Korea?
So we now know that the 6.9m figure in the White Paper is a “worse-case scenario”
– “Reiterating that the 6.9 million figure should be viewed as “the worst-case scenario”****, Mr Khaw wrote: “We hope we do not reach that figure; we may never reach that figure.”
–” Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said … he fully agrees with Mr Khaw’s explanation that a 6.9 million population is not a target, but just a worst-case, aggressive scenario the Government must prepare for.”
(Excerpts from MediaCorp)
So why didn’t the media tell us this when the media reported the White Paper? The media reported the figure of 6.9m as though it was set in reinforced concrete that had platinum bars rather than steel bars. Surely when the staff of the s/o the disgraced president, and Yaacob*gave the local media their instructions local journalists and editors the customary briefing, they made it clear that the 6.9m figure is a “worse-case scenario”? And that the figure was used to ensure that there would be adequate infrastructure should this happen, which the government didn’t want to happen. And that if it didn’t happen, S’poreans would have even better facilities for which they should thank the PAP on bended knees.
But these messages were never reported. They came to the attention of “the inhabitants of cowboy towns” who were happily shooting holes into the White Paper, and other S’poreans only when the PM Facebooked and Khaw blogged these messages.
Then the local media parroted reported what the PM and Khaw had said.
Either the local media are staffed by stupid people, or are full of subversives, who take their 30 pieces of silver ** while saboing the PAP government. Or maybe the going rate is a lot more than 30 pieces of silver? And they are not getting it? Hence the government’s messages didn’t get broadcasted.
Or were the minions of s/o Devan Nair, and Yaacob, incompetent, stupid spinners? Journalists and editors are claiming that they were never ordered briefed that the 6.9m figure was a “worse-case scenario”. They claim to be as surprised as us netizens that the PM and Khaw are now making this claim.
Whatever it is, if WP Low is to get his wish of continued PAP hegemony, PM should get a grip on the PAP spin machine. He and his ministers can’t do all the spinning themselves. Maybe Auntie Sylvia or Show Mao, in emulation of a Tang dynasty official, can whisper this to the PAP, “behind closed doors”. Remember WP, yr mission is to preserve PAP hegemony.
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**He used the phrase “worse-case scenario” when one LKY gave his Hard Truth on Malay Muslims not integrating.
Ravi the do-gooder, NSP member and ex-TOC Indian Chief wrote on FB juz before the hols: If ST* feels that online voices are not representative of the majority, then they should just ‘unfriend’ some of these ‘voices’, and spend the time tracking what’s happening online, in the field, listening to the voice of the majority. I have had reporters from the mainstream media asking me for leads for stories. Leads which are not difficult to find (some of which you can find when you just google for it). The fact is, the voices online have made the jobs of the mainstream media journalists easier, to crowdsource ideas, and to get leads. So appreciate the ‘barking dogs’ will you?
Ravi should relax. The Commanches and other injuns, and cowboys own the internet. The PAPpies are under siege in internet equivalent of Fort Apache and the YPAP trolls only venture out under the cover of darkness and anonymity. If they venture out in the light, they will be wiped out juz as Custer’s men were wiped out by the Sioux and Cheyenne at the battle of Little Big Horn.
The challenge for social or political activists is bringing the material available online to the people who don’t go online often or at all. The ST article is aimed at these people, not netizens. The message to these offliners is, “Netizens are bad, lawless people: barbarians bent on destroying S’pore. Only the constructive, nation-building media, especially ST, and the PAP stand between a prosperous S’pore and them.”
Pushing online material into physical S’pore is something a political party can do effectively. Example: During the 2008 M’sian general election campaign, the Opposition were photocopying copes of M’siakini etc stuff and distributing it to the voters even in rural areas. I have been told they even SMSed articles. Though the mind boggles as how such stuff is SMSed.
I hope the NSP will put Ravi in a position where he can try out such ideas. But given the power balance in NSP, I doubt it very much. But that’s for another post
Thanks to Uncle Leong, we netizens know that the PAP’s latest statement on AIM is “[f]ull of holes”. Problem is: Do the offliners who rely on the local media know of Uncle Leong’s analysis? (BTW, he RI boy. So don’t see us RI boys no ak. Not all of us are Tan Kin Lian or Tan Jee Say.)
Bringing goodies such as Uncle Leong’s piece to the masses is the challenge, not fighting the PAP and the local media on the internet. We own the internet.
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*A piece by an ST editor attacking netizens. It appeared the Saturday before Christmas. Gd riposte here.
Links
http://www.voiddecker.com/2012/12/vox-populi-and-the-vocal-online-community/
– By taking a page from successful US-based webcomics
I came across this while reading an article on the rise of webcomics in the Economist:
One thing they have in common is how they make their money. The typical audience for one of the leading web comics is between 1m and 10m unique browser visits per month, comparable to a medium-sized newspaper website (the website of the Daily Mail, the best-read newspaper on the web, gets around 48m per month). But unlike on newspaper websites, where advertising is the main source of revenue, the audience on web comics are not just readers—they are also customers. Most artists sell T-shirts, books, mouse mats, posters and other paraphernalia. The most successful at monetising content is said to be Mr Inman: his site, “The Oatmeal” made $500,000 in 2011 from its audience of around 7m unique visitors per month.
Try this. If it works, gd for S’pore and TRE. TRE may be ableto cover costs and pay the team shumething. If it doesn’t, then S’poreans, especially TRE’s “We hate the PAP” readers, deserve the PAP as the ruling party.
And the article goes on:
Amplified by social media—Mr Inman has some 700,000 Facebook followers—this audience can be powerful. One extremely long and exceptionally geeky comic last summer on “The Oatmeal”, extolling the virtues of the inventor Nikola Tesla and attacking his better-known rival, Thomas Edison, somehow snowballed into a campaign to save one of Tesla’s labs on the outskirts of New York. By leveraging his immense traffic to attract donations and to sell T-shirts and other gear, Mr Inman raised $1m in nine days—enough, with matching funding from New York State, to buy the building.
It’s been over a week since Muddy Waters made allegations about the accounts of Olam. Since then Olam has come out swinging, refuting the allegations and suing.
Yesterday evening, the report was made available. Most of the issues have been flagged by analysts earlier. But there are issues about the restatements of accounts that don’t affect profits and capex that need addressing by Olam.
Remember Temasek owns 16% of Olam. So it too will be studying the report.
So Ms Maria Almenoar defended herself (here’s her defence and a critique).
Forget about who is at fault (most probably both made mistakes), I have two issues with her.
She made the point that since she knew taxi drivers could earn up to $5,000 a month, $7,000 is possible. Well, I suspect that she didn’t realise that $7,000 is 40% more than $5,000. It may be possible but because it’s a big percentage jump, she should have been sceptical.
Next, what is clear from her account, is that my take on how SunT covered the story is correct: no attempt at verification. She says this was not possible.
I am willing to concede this point. But it was possible to see if the number made sense. The backlash against the story was made credible and respectable because a cabbie blogger came out with a detailed analysis on why it was impossible for said driver to earn $7,000 consistently working just eight hours a day. Later there were other pieces explaining that working 12-16 hours to earn that kind of money was not physically sustainable over long periods of time.
Ms Maria Almenoar being a seasoned transport correspondent could have done her sums and confronted the cabbie with her numbers. She didn’t.
But, SPH is being unfair in making her shoulder the defence of the story. It’s not only her mistake. There is an editorial process in any newsroom to see if a story meets certain quality standards before it is published. It clearly failed.
Here’s another case of bad reporting.
Last Friday (2 November), this appeared online: The chief executive of Malay/Muslim community self-help group Mendaki has come out to clarify that Indian-Muslims do receive help from the organisation, contrary to what several netizens had written on the group’s Facebok page.
Madam Moliah Hashim said in a note on the page on Monday that only two of the group’s many schemes are exclusively for Malays, and invited those concerned to a dialogue session with her. ST report.
Note ST’s definition of ”several netizens”. It means “almost 800 comments which were overwhelmingly in agreement with” the complainant. Don’t believe me? Read the whole story.
Now for something more substantive, than juz sniping. Mendaki was described as ”Malay/Muslim community self-help group”. But ST reported PM saying this about Mendaki, on 29th October: ”he said in a recent interview with the Malay media to mark the 30th anniversary of Malay self-help group Mendaki”. Which is it ST? Adding to the confusion, SunT, last Sunday, used the term “Malay-Muslim organisations” to describe Mendaki, among others, something pM used in the speech SunT was reporting.
There are differences between ”Malay/Muslim”, “Malay” and “Malay-Muslim”. The last term implies that the Malays must be Muslims while the first term carries the implication that there is no nexus between Malay and Muslim.
So what is Mendaki, SPH?
I’ll end with some tots about the Malay* community.
Notice that the Malays* don’t have their own exclusive race-based help or support group unlike the Chinese or Indians. They got to share Mendaki programmes with Indian-Muslims, except for two programmes . Why this state of affairs when PM has said that there is a role for race-based self-help groups in said story of 29 October?
Snide remarks aside, what it shows is that contrary to a few Hard Truths, the Malay community is not exclusive and in-ward looking. Shouldn’t ST be pointing this out?
One of these days, I must blog on what a M’sian Cina activist is saying: that in M’sia, Malay activists will die to save Chinese and Indians activists from attacks by Malay ultras or the police.
Maybe the purveyor of Hard Truths mixes with the “wrong” Malays? After all, Malay minister Yaacob muttered “worse case scenario” when LKY made his comments about Malays not “mixing”. Indeed his sister was present when LKY made the comments, and she didn’t challenge him did she? Watch the DVD.
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*Ya, I’m avoiding the issue of whether Malays in S’pore must be Muslims. Unlike in M’sia, this is not in the constitution. If our constitution avoids the issue, so can I. Anyway it is a verifiable Hard Truth is that every Malay, S’porean or M’sian, I know is a Muslim. So the point is an academic one.
So the NSP has not gone into hibernation. It is co-organising this seminar entitled “How to Survive the Perils of the Online World?” . Pretty impressive speakers: three lawyers (one an academic, while another is a former president of the Law Soc and former DPP) and Cherian George. New NSP member, Ravi Philemon, ex-TOC chief editor, blogger, do-gooder and social activist is moderating. It should be an interesting, entertaining and educational do. Do try to attend, but make sure you park carefully*.
Traditionally the NSP (referred to by trolls as the “No Substance Party”) falls asleep after a GE, to waken just before the next GE. It happened after 1996 and even after 2001, when Steve Chia became a NCMP. He, and the NSP, didn’t build on that position for the 2006 GE. After the 2006 GE, it went into hibernation to be roused in 2008 by one Goh Meng Seng, who had joined NSP from the WP.
After the 2011 GE, GMS resigned from the NSP (a troll said he is a serial resigner from parties after GEs, having resigned from WP after the 2006 GE: if he set-up his own party, he would quit it after losing a GE.).
The expectation was that the party would go into hibernation what with internal disputes earlier this year.
Well the party has proven us sceptics wrong. It is walking the ground regularly in Tampines GRC. I hear Nicole Seah is doing something in Marine Parade GRC, Hazel and hubbie are wading in the North Western marshes and recreational farms, and Jeannette Chong is cycling (though there are trolls saying she is doing so to lose weight) in Mountbatten.
As befits a party with two scholars (Hazel and hubbie) and a lawyer (Jeannette), NSP is planning to do a policy paper entitled: “My Singapore: Identity, Population and Manpowe”’. To help it write the paper, is doing a survey. The survey format is undergrad stuff but it shows NSP is trying to solicit people’s opinion, not hectoring while ignoring them (PAP). Nor ignoring them, unlike WP.
It holds regular legal clinics to advise S’poreans. After Alex Au’s row with AG on his comments on a legal judgement, I had suggested to a NSP member I knew, and on Ms Chong’s FB wall, that maybe it should use one of its legal clinics to advise netizens on how to avoid upsetting the AG. It would have the additional advantage of getting some PR and goodwill from netizens. So maybe, I should get a bit of credit for this Saturday’s seminar? But easy to propose, organising isn’t so easy.
But more needs to be done. NSP’s website is pretty basic (Rumour is that GMS designed it). As at time of writing 5th November, it didn’t even advertise ”How to Survive the Perils of the Online World?” on its website: this appeared on 6 November. But it is advertising a 2011 November event, I kid you not. So its online presence is even less than that of the WP or SPP, and miles behind that of the SDP.
The good thing is that with such a low starting point, there is no further downside. Can’t get any worse.
My suggestion to NSP is to anoint Ravi as online Czar, responsible for online strategy and delivery. He did a gd job at TOC, when he was editing the contents: claiming Han Seng Tong’s scalp, getting minister Shan say nasty things about TOC, and making KennethJ angry (Ravi didn’t publish his rants). Against that, Mrs Chiam has said nice things about TOC under Ravi’s editorship.
To conclude, NSP is shedding its “No Substance Party” image and the hibernation habit between GEs. But it has a long way to go in building its cred among voters. Giving Ravi the online portfolio will help built cred online. But NSP should make sure Ravi doesn’t skive when it comes to walking the ground: not because he needs to shed kilos, not juz pounds (he does) but boots on the ground are needed to win a seat (Juz ask auntie Sylvia, and he-man Steve Chia). Every member must do the walking or cycling.
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*LTA might not be happy that Ravi is kicking up a big fuss over how LTA exercises its rules when an MP intervenes. He has also alleged that an MP had parked illegally.
There were two full-page articles in the Sunday Times on Oct 28, 2012 about two cabbies earning $7,000. per month. Since then there’s been plenty in the “cowboy” town about the accuracy of these stories. This piece in TRE has prompted me to share what I’ve learnt about how SPH reports stories.
SunT regularly features the investment “geniuses” of S’pore. They all so smart, always make money. In the past, these stories regularly appeared in ST and, even BT.
Many years ago, I asked people in SPH, editors and reporters, how SPH goes about verifying these tales of investment prowess. The answers were evasive, avoided the issue, when they were answered at all. Often I was ignored.
Only one person, someone who had moved on from SPH, gave me a straight answer. She told me to read the stories carefully. It was always “XXX said he made millions” etc. It never (well almost never) said “XXX made millions’. So it seems that the stories on these investment “geniuses”, were stories based on what they said, not on verifiable facts.
Now go read those SunT pieces again. In the main, it is a straight forward piece of “he said”. No attempt at verification or analysis like like when SPH reports ministerial statements. But this doesn’t mean the SPHreporters and editors are “not professional”: readers are daft. They “have eyes, and see not; which have ears, and hear not”: “O foolish and senseless people”.
“Having eyes, see ye not? and having ears, hear ye not? and do ye not remember?”
“They have mouths, but they speak not; eyes have they, but they see not”.
In the light of the ongoing PSLE debate, I tot I should draw readers attention to this chart.
It is no surprise that our constructive, nation-building, 30-pieces-of silver media did not reproduce this chart. But I’m surprised that our alternate media too did not, despite a very anti-PAP blog being given this (by me).
Netizens seem to think that a media not controlled by the govt will offer better and more sophisticated analysis. These comments from young journalists covering the crisis in Europe indicate that even in a “free” media, the media often does do not explain the social effects of what is happening and, “Often journalists themselves do not know and do not make an effort to understand what is really going on.”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-20001940
LKY has always defended the PAP’s stance on the media by pointing out that the Rupert Murdoch’s of this world use their media interests for their personal agendas.
I must say the Archbishop has no brains. Otherwise why would he write the original letter. None of church’s biz who the state locks up without trial. And there is the back story of liberation theology and the 1987 “Marxists”. Why get involved? What was he thinking or not thinking? Was he on a high after communion, what with the wine and incense?
Or was he misled into signing the letter? Some liberation theology, Marxist subversive friend of Function 8 and the SDP could have slipped the letter in among other letters to be signed. If so church shld root out the subversive. Call in ISD if nec. Even so shows Archie was careless. And a bad judge of character.
If anyone doesn’t know what I’m talking about, read this summary: http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/singaporelocalnews/view/1227305/1/.html
And waz this other rubbish Archie?
[T]he Archbishop said his letter to the group was intended as a private communication.
He added if the the group was going to publicise it at a political event – something which he did not intend – then they should have asked for permission first.
The Archbishop said they did not do so.
So why withdraw the letter if it was private and could not be released? [B]ecause the contents did not accurately reflect his views.
So why so careless or stupid? Vatican should investigate his suitability to be the leader of S’pore Catholics.
But God is great, everyone else involved in F8Gate goofed.
Home Team did Archie no favours with its letter attacking Function 8. Sit down and shut up. [Update after publication: Gd link on whty it shld not have said anything http://www.tremeritus.com/2012/09/23/mha-walks-into-a-minefield/]
And if it was unhappy with the original letter, juz get MFA to complain to the Vatican. Knowing the Pope’s views on liberation theology, Archie would have been beaten up in-house. No need for ISD to intimidate him, as alleged.
So why have tea and lunch with him and tax-payers’ expense?
Function 8 didn’t do itself any favours with its various remarks. Dignified silence would have served it better: at the very least shown up Archie’s unsuitability to be a religious leader. All respectable S’poreans (self especially) should avoid it. Must be Dr Chee’s and SDP’s evil spirits finding a new home after he and SDP exorcised themselves.
And Maruah, “civil society” is more than Function 8, Alex Au and friends.
And I suppose Maruah, Alex Au etc will have no issues with any religious leader if said religious leader comes out in support of the govt’s immigration policy, or its sexual education policy or the view that adults must be married before breeding for S’pore. Careful for what you wish.
Finally where being an internet activist can get one arrested and beaten up (see below) So give PM, DPM Teo, ISD and Home Team a break, Alex Au, Function 8, Maruah, TOC, and other “subversives”. Wonder why our constructive, nation-building media doesn’t highlight what real repression is all abt?
ISD sleeping on the job in vetting local media appointments, and ferreting out subversives?. I mean hard to believe MediaCorp and CNA could be so cack-handed in choosing panelists. Conclusion: trying to sabo NatCon by deliberately choosing so many PAPpies and friends?
And if you don’t think this is funny enough, read this http://newnation.sg/2012/09/ntuc-fairprice-retracts-love-letters-sold-to-function-8/.
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With the effectiveness of the mainstream opposition hit badly by the repression and by its own lack of unity, many young Belarusians have turned to internet activism. The regime clearly wants to nip this in the bud as quickly as possible. In August several pages on social networking sites were shut down, their administrators arrested and beaten. Raman Pratasevich, who at 17 has already seen the inside of several prison cells, beamingly says the page he runs, Stop Luka, is currently live again. When I met him on Independence Square, the scene of the 2010 protest, four plain-clothes police officers immediately appeared.
This time, they merely took down our names and let us carry on the interview. But earlier that day, several journalists had been detained and roughed-up alongside the activists they were filming. Their footage was deleted. The same day a number of foreign youth activists from the International Federation of Liberal Youth were detained and told to leave the country on the grounds that they had violated their visa rules. Some OSCE election observers have been denied visas. It seems in the run-up to polling day, the regime is turning up the heat, just to be sure.
Extract from Economist blog
There are several pieces the last few days that I wanted to respond to. So here are the quotes and links to the pieces and my reactions to them.
These u/m bloggers have got it absolutely right. S’poreans should empower themselves by PM’s NatCon for our own ends, subverting it. Let’s use NatCon constructively to build civil society in our nation.
– My point is that we should stop relying on the government, for them to handhold us all the way; we, as citizens, have the abilities and intelligence to bring something new to the table. Guanyinmao’s Musings
In the bad old days, these two bloggers would be detained under the ISA for being too clever by half. But heck, PM’s different. So give him credit for not using the ISA, and for being willing to be generous with our money: spending it to make life more comfortable for ourselves. Teachers, and doctors and other healthcare professions should be happy with their pay rises. GE sooner than later?
Propaganda machine dysfunctional? Or is it juz MediaCorp and its CNA? SPH hasn’t goofed yet? One can only hope.
– National Conversation has rapidly degenerated into ‘Spot the secret PAP member’ contest. Donaldson Tan
Six or seven out of 50 seems a lot, and then there the PA people and family relations. What abt trade unionists? On Wednesday, a picture began circulating on Facebook giving the background of 36 participants. Netizens accused them of being ”running dogs” of the PAP.
The above shows how new media makes it difficult for traditional media to be constructive and nation-building.
And while the governing PAP takes seriously the task of using the media to “guide public opinion”, with a friend (or is it a “running dog”?) , in the constructive, nation-building MediaCorp, the PM doesn’t need “cowboy town” bloggers to cast doubts on NatCon. First there was the uninviting blogger Ravi and friends (“because PM had met the bloggers”), then this. What next MediaCorp?
Actually, given that a PAP MP is the MD of the S’pore operation of an int’l PR firm, it’s a bad reflection on that firm’s capabilities that these things can happen. He shouls know better.
But the fact that bloggers focus on the numbers and not on what the PAPpies and friends said, gives the impression that these PAPpies and allies didn’t contribute to the conversation. So why bother abt naming and shaming them, except that it’s a great blood sport, discrediting them and the governing PAP? Now if they had skewed the conversation, then bitch abt their skewing of the conversation, not juz their numbers. Sorry, I no watch television, so no imput there.
It’s private and public LOL!
My avatar commented on Facebook when he read this SDP rant abt Dr Chee being prevented from selling his books at a spot where he was arrested for protesting.: “It’s public space for purpose of ”protesting”. It’s private space in terms of selling stuff. I kid you not: law like that LOL. Dr Chee shld go to spot in Raffles City where JBJ used to sell his books. And see what happens. ))))”. AG confirms this view this correct.
Trying to manufacture a controversy to sell more books in a very worthy cause? Plenty of lawyers associated with SDP, so could have advised it on the law. But then they are “trouble makers” like Teo and Ravi. LOL.
He shld stop taking himself so seriously and stop sliming others, this son of the much-loved JBJ. He is doing himself (and memory of dad) no favours by being so childishly petulant regularly. Take his response on Alex Tan, vis-a-vis Mrs Chiam’s classy, high EQ response. She didn’t have a First Class in econs from Cambridge (she’s only a British-trained nurse), but she sure knows how to handle a tricky situation, unlike him.
Funny thing is that despite being so full of himself, he made a fool of self when he publicly got the words of the Pledge wrong at a public rally last yr. And in an ang moh accent too. Govt scholars (including Tony and Hazel) went to posh British unis. They don’t speak in ang moh accent. But he wants to show that he is different? The excuse that he worked many yrs in London, cuts no ice with me. Know someone who went to a really posh (and intellectually demanding) English public school, and then went to work in the City when it was a racist place before finally returning home. Speaks English like LKY.
And talking of LKY, I come back to the tot of throwing people into jail.
If you read the piece, the examples of “wrongs” that need to be apologised for are things that LKY tot he was right to do. And which many S’poreans at the time gave him the benefit of the doubt for doing (me for instance), if they didn’t outright support him. It is only with hindsight that these decisions seem to many, especially younger S’poreans, to be wrong.
Take the 1987 Marxists’ arrests: liberation theology worried even the Roman Catholic church. The insurgencies in Latin and Central America, partly inspired by liberation theology worried the US government who feared that the USSR was using the insurgencies to attack the USA in a vulnerable area. And if you have heard as I have, a Filipino priest, expound on the need for the church to fight social injustice, one can be reasonably afraid of the do-gooders: that they will be taken advantage of by the USSR and friends.
We now know who won the Cold war. But in 1987, the USSR was the evil empire. And LKY was planning to pass on power.
In this piece, NMP Janice Koh laments the govmin is not funding S’pore’s participation in a very “chim” arts festival: Are we intending to backtrack on the last ten years of work in profiling our best artists internationally? Why bother investing millions of dollars in art schools and scholarships to develop artistic talent each year, into encouraging greater arts participation on the ground, if there is no concerted and consistent effort to create a track for our top creative talent to showcase Singapore’s artistic excellence at the most critical platforms? And despite all the rhetoric on wanting to encourage dialogue and engagement, was the visual arts sector and the artistic community consulted at all on this issue before the pull-out?
As shumeone who knows very little of the arts scene here, and who knows many S’poreans who are like me, when the piece was edited from her Facebook post to an online article in an online magazine (not TRE), she should have:
– given more information on government funding for other show case events: is the Venice do juz one of several, some of many, or the only one (If it was the only one, she should say so. If she doesn’t know, why write about it on an on-line magazine?); and
– told us whether the government consulted with the community. This: ”And despite all the rhetoric on wanting to encourage dialogue and engagement, was the visual arts sector and the artistic community consulted at all on this issue before the pull-out?” seemed to imply that there wasn’t. After all, if there was, she would have surely known?
Sadly as it stands, S’porans like myself who are not into the artsy, folksy scene, are left wondering whether this is a “rant”, well intended doubtless, by a member or a friend of the arts community, against an action of the government that she and the arts community does not like? It is certainly no critical analysis of the role of govt spending or priorities in the arts.
This point of view is reinforced by the minister’s comments in parly that the arts community were consulted http://blogs.todayonline.com/forartssake/2012/09/10/mica-responds-to-venice-biennale-issue/. He also gave details of the cost of participation in that chim do.
Janice Koh on her Facebook page or even on her personal blog has every right to rant and rave. But Janice Koh (the “arts” NMP — a title she has not cried off) has no such right when writing in a more formal setting, and a wider audience. She should also bear in mind that society has a view, wrong of course, that actress are “air heads”. So she shouldn’t add to that view.
My wider point, is that us netizens have to do more than rant and rave. We got to share facts.
I was planning to write a totful, analytical piece abt the changes at TOC since the GE of 2011. There had been major changes twice since then in the way TOC was run.
But the front page of TOC (at the time of writing compels) me to put up this short note.
There are nine Main Stories, of which only one is an original piece. Of the rest, two three are media releases (no, I’m not bitching abt them because they give useful info) but the remaining six five Main Stories are from other blogs. And the original article is not a gd piece of writing. It’s a rant.
And the reprints (two from the same person) are OK reads, nothing v.v good. Today’s Main Story, written by one KennethJ, is not even that recent. It was written shumetime back.
While today’s front page, is extreme, I’ve noticed that ever since Ravi the do-gooder stepped down*, there has been a growing use of “reprints”. In June, I sent an email to a member of the Core Team asking jokingly if KennethJ was paying for ad space or had taken over TOC**. On 2 June and 3 June this year, out of the nine Main Stories TOC carried, he had three articles (I’m not sure if they were reprints from his blog) and one praising him to the skies.***
Is TOC becoming an aggregator? Is it becoming an aggregator out of choice or because of a dearth of original material ?Remember it’s so easy nowadays to start a blog, and aggregators like SGDaily and S’pore Surf draw attention to new bloggers by helping promote pieces they think should be of interest.
And why is the editorial team not writing more themselves? Ravi and before him, Andrew Loh, used to write many of the original articles that appeared in TOC.
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*I helped him edit and the new team asked me twice to help edit but never used my edits (their right) and I never ever got another piece to edit from them (fair enough, not wasting the time of both sides if they don’t like my edits)
**Remember he tried to takeover SDP only to fail and look silly, dumb and petulant in the process. Chiam (his mentor) came out looking silly but recovered quickly his credibility. KennethJ never did.
***And between 7 July- 10th July, there were two articles by him (again not sure if they were reprints) and one abt him out of the nine Main Stories.
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In this and this, I talked about one reason why moving ministers around was good: the new ministers can “move on” from their predecessors who because they were the ministers who made the decisions or who were otherwise responsible were in denial, or too defensive about their actions, couldn’t take remedial action: flood prevention measures, and public housing and transport problems.
The news in the past week, about a major flood prevention project (see below), reminded me of another reason: a minister who was a dud in another portfolio could turn out to have the skills needed in a new portfolio. VivienB is the person I have in mind. As welfare and sports minister, he was a flop: making fun of the elderly needy, and while refusing to spend more on them overspending wildly on the Kiddie Olympics.
But as water minister he dares to be decisive: approving an expensive but much needed project. PUB’s plans to build a diversion canal and detention tank at the Stamford Canal Catchment to better deal with intense storms. The cost has not been revealed but given that it involves construction work in the Orchard Road area, it will cost serious money.
Well VivianB is not afraid to give it his approval. If Yaacob had been in charge, senior PUB engineers tell me that he would still be thinking about it: asking if they could find cheaper ways of mitigating once in half a century floods that juz happened twice in two months in 2010. After all as an academic, he would say that the events of 2010 could be juz statistical flukes. If so, why spend money unnecessarily based on outliers?
And thinking about it, Yaacob is a good “information” minister. He took his time over introducing a Code of Conduct for bloggers. And now seems to have shelved idea for yhe time being.
We would not have liked it if he had been decisive and autocratic about it. And imagine the egg on the face of the government if he had acted decisively and forced the CoC down the collectively throat of netizens: a CoC that was modelled on the practices of the mainstream media; only for revelations to hit the fan that STOMP used paid “content providers” to pose as citizen journalists, one of them faked a news item, and for the STOMP content team to admit that they are FTs from China?
So PM, let’s move on to yr dad’s policy of moving ministers around and out. No more jobs for life that Goh Chok Tong and you seem to favour.
(Or “LawSocGate: Some light pls)
Lawyer Ravi (as brave, if not braver than lion-hearted JBJ) is planning to take legal action against the Law Soc and Wong Siew Hong, its employee.
And that he is making a complaint to the medical authorities (albeit the wrong one based on his publicist’s report: he should be reporting Dr Fones to the Singapore Medical Council – not Association. The SMA is the doctors’ trade union — with teeth unlike NTUC unions – while SMC is the regulatory body) abt his doctor’s conduct.
I hope he follows through with his plan.*
This is because I think it is important for S’poreans to know:
– Was it true as reported in ST (sister publication of STOMP) that he was involved in an incident at a temple (the police came but did not arrest anyone) the day after he saw Dr Fones and the day before the doctor’s letter was written and leaked?And if so, did this incident this influence the actions of Dr Fones and Wong Siew Hong? And how did they get to know about the incident since it wasn’t reported at the time?
– The circumstances in which Ravi give KennethJ (the son of said JBJ, and a failed politician and attention-seeker) authority to release the letter?*
– Why did said KJ release the letter without giving any it any context? Intentionally saboing his lawyer and ally, or sheer incompetence, or tidak apa, or was that what Ravi wanted initially?*
– Why did Law Society withdraw its initial comment ”that LSS had initiated the intervention in the court proceedings.” I am told that there was a row among Law Soc council members on the initial comment and a request to approve Wong’s actions. Depending on who is telling me, a big minority, or narrow majority, or just some Law Soc council members who were willing to publicly resign and talk about why they resigned forced the Law Soc to withdraw its first statement because they refused to rectify the action of Law Soc staffer.
– Did Wong act on his own initiative, or was he asked to do so by someone higher up in the Law Soc?
Related posting: My view on Ravi’s legal skills http://atans1.wordpress.com/2012/06/25/waz-petition-ladys-game/
*He already has backtracked a little. After announcing plans to issue a writ against the Law Soc and its employee, he has sent a letter of demand to the Law Soc.
**Ravi wanted his side of the story told because he was afraid that he would be silenced quietly. Unfortunately, KJ, his client and ally, for some strange reason, released the letter, without giving the context of said letter. This made it terrible for Ravi. So Andrew Loh and Richard Wan intervened, with a video of Ravi explaining what had happened etc.
Richard Wan: What actually happened is this. Ravi got the letter after the morning session of the High Court hearing on the by-election case (16th). The details I think is pretty much described in the various media. KJ was there at the hearing. Ravi passed the letter to KJ to put it up online so as to inform the public what has happened. However, KJ did not write up to describe more details what had happened – he simply just put up the letter (ie, no head no tail). Of course, his twitter posting went viral. A TRE reader then alerted me …
… Yes, as explained, putting up the letter alone by itself without any other description or write-up was confusing. Which is why it was taken down since Andrew and myself were going to come up with the full article to explain things from Ravi’s side.
Richard Wan, TRE’s public face, somewhere in the thread here.
(Or “The difference between blogging and the traditional newspaper story”)
Remember when Yaacob was promoting his CoC (Code of Conduct) for the internet, he praised our mainstream constructive media and said they should be exemplars netizens should follow http://atans1.wordpress.com/2012/05/16/two-examples-of-how-st-covers-fts/ .
We now know what he wants us netizens to do: fake news reports using paid content producers like STOMP. His sis is a very, very senior editor at ST, a sister publication of STOMP.
Well I doubt that in 2012, we will hear anymore about his CoC. But next year is another year, and the CoC is not a once in 50-years event.
I was reminded of the above CoC and STOMP’s paid content producers posing as “citizen journalists” when I read this: [T]he traditional newspaper story derives its force and directionality from the man-bites-dog newsiness of the flat content. It’s very difficult to include expert commentary that depletes or diffuses the newsiness, because it sucks the signifying force out of the piece. In contrast, blogging and tweeting are far more flexible and use many other discursive techniques to supply directionality and signifying force, most importantly personalistic tone. You can write a blog post about something utterly un-newsworthy, say the fact that Barack Obama is president of the United States, and make it signify through sheer emotive presence or stylistic technique. But you can’t write a newspaper story about that.
One great reason why netizens shouldn’t be forced to be like a newspaper, even one like the FT or NYT or the Economist, let alone a publication like ST when even the footie news is distorted for the government’s constructive, nation-building agenda of “FTs are betterest” policy.
Read the whole blog posting because it gives great insights on how a newspaper, any newspaper from the NYT to ST and its peers in China and North Korea, operate http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2012/06/media-rules
(Or “Let’s give one cheer to Dr Ng”)
Us netizens are forever bitching (rightly too) that the constructive, nation-building media report news selectively, and that comment and analysis are pretty slanted. Everything has to be viewed via the lenses of boot-licking, constructivism and nation-building.
Earlier this week, there was a lot of comment (no analysis)
in the cowboy towns of the internet about the fact that abt one-third of the eligible PRs for NS, don’t do it. “Over the last five years, about a third of male foreigners who became PRs under the sponsorship of their parents renounced their PR status prior to serving NS.”
Funny that there was no mention (except by TRE) or comment on what the Minister of Defence advised PR FT parents in the interview he gave in which those numbers were given.
Dr Ng said, “Better don’t take up the PR if your children are not going to do NS. It’s as simple as that. In our system if you don’t fulfil your NS liabilities, even if you choose to give up your PR, there are harsh penalties.”
“I have received many letters from families that are separated and they cannot come back to Singapore,” he added.
I think that he is telling FTs who want it all, that they can’t have it all. They got to choose. Shouldn’t he get at least one cheer for this?
As Kong and Sun might hector their detractors: “Either how canst thou say to thy brother, Brother, let me pull out the mote that is in thine eye, when thou thyself beholdest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, cast out first the beam out of thine own eye, and then shalt thou see clearly to pull out the mote that is in thy brother’s eye.”
“He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.”
Yup, I like quoting from the King James version of the Gospels. And I like quoting from the Gospels, but not the letters of Paul, except the one abt “Faith, Hope and Charity”. Charity means “Love” but not of the sexual kind.
Sometime ago I ranted abt how when manual workers and clerks had sex with an underaged FT prostitute, claiming they didn’t know, and were jailed, no-one kicked up a fuss on the internet. But when middle class professionals were charged with a similar offence, netizens rushed to their defence, saying that it was unfair to them because they didn’t know: the gal lied to those that asked. Anyway, she was a prostitute, and the law should not protect people like her. The self-appointed People’s Voice, one TKL, even compared sex with a minor to baking a cake. OK, OK, I exaggerate but juz a little.
I was told, “Oh, no public awareness when these people were charged. Now different leh”. Well last Saturday ST reported that a 60-year old ”odd job worker” had been jailed for having sex with an underage FT Vietnamese prostitute.
So far, I have not seen any netizen saying “unfair”. Could it be because he didn’t ask her about her age? Or could it be that netizens don’t read ST especially on a Saturday? Or could it be that because it’s a 60-year old “odd job worker” (dirty old man), they don’t care? He is not a young, middle-age middle class professional.
Shouldn’t the People’s Voice be standing up or raising questions on the plight of this old man and the others who are not middle class?
My wider point is that netizens must be more self-aware of their assumptions, prejudices etc when they yack. If they are not aware, it makes it easier for the PAP government to dismiss them as “noise”. Example: “Turning to the case of the 25-year-old, dubbed the sticker-lady, who was arrested for vandalism, Mr Shanmugam said there are no hard and fast rules on what’s considered art on public buildings. He said the government must look at the consensus of the majority and how the majority would like society to be structured.” He is giving the finger to netizens calling for leniency for her.
They should choose the battles they want to fight. Fighting to change the law on commercial sex with an underage prostitute might be a battle worth fighting (not to me though), but it is not worth fighting for selective justice. Especially when the accused are “one’s kind”.
And once having chosen something to fight abt, be persistent. No more has been heard abt the sex with a minor; nor abt the “sticky lady”. It seems netizens got short attention spans, and are always “moving on” for someone else to yak about. If the PAPpies cotton onto this, they will sit tight with mouths shut until the netizens get tired of posturing and echoing. Maximum period of attention span seems to be two weeks.
Finally if they want to change society, they “must look at the consensus of the majority and how the majority would like society to be structured” as an indication of how hard to push. Stanley Kubrick made films that packed the cinemas and got rave reviews from art-house critics because he knew the art of making movies at the edge of public tastes: they accepted his ideas because they were juz beyond their comfort zone. He didn’t push them deep into their zone of discomfort, juz slightly beyond their comfort zone.
With its share price falling, time to revisit its prospectus?
Facebook’s enlightened self-interest approach to running its business is highly unusual in corporate America and may in fact prove impossible to sustain over the long term.
(Or “Why misbehaving FTs should be glad that they are still alive” or “Yaacob’s “Three steps” to Heaven”: Analysing Step 3″)
Is this what Yaacob wants the constructive, nation-building local media to teach bloggers: FTs are never ever in the wrong?
Sorry, some background first.
There are three steps that Yaacob wants taken to tame “cowboy towns”:
Step 1: “The Internet community creates a code of conduct for responsible online behaviour”
Step 2: “Citizens set up websites that offer constructive viewpoint” i.e. he said that the best way to go is to encourage other sites to emerge, “that can continue to offer constructive ideas and useful suggestions”.
Step 3: “Major media cos could help set the right tone online”
(I’ve covered Steps 1 and 2 here and here’s my analysis of step 3. Yes I promised it yonks ago, but my examples would have been historical. These examples are contemporary.)
In the space of about a week, ST carried two sets of stories where FTs were portrayed as being in the right despite evidence to the contrary. (Note I’ll be linking to non-ST reports because ST is behind a pay wall.)
First, even though M’sian TV showed (a M’sian friend told me) a video of FTs from S’pore misbehaving, before being beaten up for their pains, not shown, ST never carried that version. It had earlier reported the following : report from M’sian Star copied bt TRE http://www.tremeritus.com/2012/05/12/sg-expats-claim-assault-by-bodyguards-of-royalty-off-johor-island/
Then there is the report on an accident where the PRC driver of a Ferrari, a taxi driver and a taxi passenger died. The ST story seemed to me to defend the Ferrari driver and flaunted his weath. I’m not the only one.
So this is what Yaacob wants from a Coc?
Apart from ST’s reporting which shows that the constructive, nation-building local media’s objectivity when covering FTs, the Johor incident shows that some ang moh FTs are so used to misbehaving here and getting away with it (remember the Suntec incident?) that they do the same when they visit M’sia. They think they can get way with annoying Johor royalty because they think ang moh tua kee. They shld be glad that they are still alive to tell us their tall stories.
Since the trains started breaking down towards the end of last yr, bloggers and posters (not I) have been attacking SMRT for putting profits before safety, and disregarding the engineers’ advice (though without having a clue abt the said advice). Yacoob’s exemplar for the new media, the constructive, nation-building media were deafening in their silence on this national issue. I was silent because I was trying to figure out if I shld go buy some SMRT shares.
Well, based on the comments by the chairman, Koh Yong Gua, reported by ST and ST’s headline on an inside page, the inhabitants of cowboy towns were correct. (Explain that Yacoob and DPM Teo.)
“SMRT to refocus on its engineers” read the headline. This implied that SMRT had lost its focus on engineers somewhere along the line, assuming it once had such a focus.
Mr Koh said that “SMRT will be repositioned an engineering company”, begging the question “What was its earlier positioning?”. Retailer, property developer, financial engineer, or cash cow for Temasek? Since SMRT was listed in 2000, Temasek has received $694.3m in dividends (I’ve including the dividend declared recently).
The promotion of Mr Khoo Hean Siang in March 2011 to COO was meant to show the importance of engineers, he said. The previous COO who was “removed” was not a technical person. Wonder what was he? Ex-SAF officer or financial man? With the CEO a retailer, it surprises me that until 2011, the COO was not a technical man. And that board meetings did not include a very senior engineer in attendance.
Actually, I think Mr Koh still hasn’t got it. SMRT is not an engineering company. It is a company whose main business is moving large numbers of people around S’pore safely, and in reasonable comfort (most of the time). By focusing on engineers and positioning SMRT as an engineering company, he could be laying the seeds for a serious problem somewhere along the track. Investors in the West have found that companies dominated by engineers tend to goldplate processes and systems. Siemens, Rolls-Royce, Westinghouse, Boeing, Airbus and even GE, had to be run by non-engineers before shareholders benefitted.
Commuters may say so what? So long as it is safer and doesn’t breakdown, power to the engineers. The problem is that goldplating is expensive, and eventually someone has to pay. This is likely to be the commuter (via fare increases) or his avatar or alter ego the taxpayer.
I was planning to buy into a rights issue when one is annced, as I expect. But given the positioning as an “engineering company” and its “refocus on its engineers”, I think I’ll give the stock a miss for the time being. But never ever bet against Temasek when it comes to a local company.
Related post:
http://atans1.wordpress.com/2012/05/06/smrt-quiet-re-nationalisation/
(Or “Doc’s cure Part I: a purgative)
PAP’s Heaven that is. Hell to us netizens. OK, let’s not exaggerate, more like Purgatory.
Sorry, Back to the headline. There are three steps that Yaacob wants taken to tame “cowboy towns”:
Step 1: “The Internet community creates a code of conduct for responsible online behaviour”
Step 2: “Citizens set up websites that offer constructive viewpoint” i.e. he said that the best way to go is to encourage other sites to emerge, “that can continue to offer constructive ideas and useful suggestions”.
Step 3: “Major media cos could help set the right tone online”
Step 1 has been well covered by netizens since he articulated it many moons ago. All I will add to the noise is this analysis
– If the government tries to regulate us bloggers, it’ll do more harm than good, for the government itself, the PAP and for S’pore. The government and PAP are no good in designing social systems: even the CCP in China acknowledges it cannot be the only social architect, it is only one of the players, albeit the one that can throw other players into jail. The PAP government has a further problem given government’s desire for a knowledge-based economy, but with knowledge and the economy increasingly dependent on access and the use of the internet, it can no longer control the information S’poreans get. The internet and, in particular, social media have created a level of transparency never ever seen before in S’pore. Even taking into account the lack of publicly available government data, people can still research complicated issues with a few clicks of a mouse. The PAP government can no longer control the agenda or the framework within which discussions take place.
Even manufacturing is becoming social: read the Economist, the magazine where the government got its ideas for COEs, and CBD charges, among other “screw the poor” ideas.
– In the context of the other two steps, it is totally irrelevant. It has nothing to do with getting citizens to set up websites “that offer constructive viewpoints” or” with the local media helping readers to “separate the wheat from the chaff”.
– And even after asserting that the internet should grow as a platform for “serious discussion”, Dr Yaacob said a site cannot be stopped “just because we disagree with it”. There’s “nothing wrong” with ”more sites available that offer alternative views, but as long as they are constructive … based on proper analysis”.
On Step 2, “Citizens set up websites that offer constructive viewpoint”, my first tot was, “Err whatever happened to FTs, that ministers so treasure? They don’t do “constructive” websites? Or are they banned from doing “constructive websites” but allowed to do ”unconstructive” websites (citizens are discouraged from doing these sites)? Or are FTs banned totally from setting up websites on S’pore? Or all websites?”. If the last “wah lan” what kind of FTs do we want? Only goodie-two shoes (as defined by the PAP) like ”No NS for me” from Msian-born Puthu or “Food is gd is M’sia” from Msian-born Ms Foo”. Incidentally, both became PAP MPs.
And he is talking rubbish, “If there are no good online sites or platforms that offer good views, people will naturally gravitate toward those that are popular and available.” Well people will always gravitate to sites that support their point of view. Ask the watchers of Fox TV in the US. And to “yellow culture” websites that promote decadent lifestyles.
But my biggest grouse with him on Step 2, is that what are “good” and “constructive” websites with ”proper analysis” to enable “serious discussion” and “useful ideas”, are defined by the PAP government. It’s the usual “setting the agenda”, framing the issue game that the government is always playing.
And it’s clear that by saying the local media can help readers to “separate the wheat from the chaff … our major companies, which have an established presence, can set the right tone online as well, with good practices of information sharing and moderation on the various online platforms”, his definitions of “good”, “constructive”, “proper analysis”, “useful ideas” and ”serious discussion” are the same definitions used by the PAP government to describe its ideal mainstream media, and the local media when it describes itself. He only left out “nation-building”*.
As this post is getting too long, I leave for next week examples of what I speculate are the practices he wants our “citizen”, “constructive” websites to learn from the local media: publishing misleading photos or rewriting letters-to-the-editor to misrepresent the views of the writers?
For now, I’ll leave you with some light relief, “[T]o disagree with the Government is not a crime, but let’s put it on a rational objective footing. The Government has never shied away from that and that is something we look forward to, so that the Internet community can add to the discourse.” Wonder if the late JBK, Dr Chee or TOC would agree?
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* Actually he didn’t The Jakarta Post reported that he “noted that Singapore’s media model is one based on forging consensus and facilitating nation-building, in which social cohesion is preserved while empowering people to make informed decisions as a society.”
I think that District Judge Low Wee Pin got it absolutely right when he found Gary Yue Mun Yew guilty of two offences involving the incitement of violence via the internet but rejected the prosecutions call for a prison sentence. He fined him $6,000 for uploading a video clip and another $2,500 for posting a doctored photograph. On each count, the sentence could be up to five years’ jail or a fine, or both.
During sentencing, District Judge Low Wee Ping made it clear that the charges against Yue were based on the acts of posting electronic documents that contained incitement to violence. This, the judge stressed, was very different from the act of inciting violence (my emphasis).
The judge also said that the YouTube video and Yue’s comment (details below) were “without doubt, an incitement to political assassination of persons on the grand-stand” on National Day. But he ruled that Yue had no intent to incite violence (again my emphasis), saying Yue was “immature” and “attention-seeking”.
What the prosecution and judgement show is that the internet is not “injun territory” or Commancheria* or a lawless cowboy town, where laws don’t apply and criminals can escape detection via anonymity. But at the same time, the judge shows that commiting crimes on the internet do not mean that the ordinary rules of justice are thrown out in order to “frighten the chickens by killing brutally a monkey”.
Three cheers for this judge. Lawyers, of the do-good kind like Siow Kum Hong and Super Yadav, if it’s not illegal, offer to buy him a cuppa if you run into him. Send the bill to me, if he accepts. I believe do-good lawyers don’t earn much.
Backgrounder
Gary Yue Mun Yew posted a video clip depicting the assassination of former Egyptian President Anwar Sadat on the Facebook page of socio-political website Temasek Review at about 3pm on Aug 9, 2010.
Along with the video, Yue wrote the comment: “We should re-enact a live version of this on our own grand-stand during our national’s (sic) parade!!!!!”
… was also found guilty of posting a photograph on his Facebook profile in late July or early August 2010, which depicted Vietnamese General Nguyen Ngoc Loan executing a Vietcong prisoner.
The face of Singapore’s former Deputy Prime Minister and Home Affairs Minister Wong Kan Seng was superimposed on the image of the prisoner.
The People’s Action Party logo was also displayed on the prisoner’s chest.
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/singaporelocalnews/view/1188429/1/.html
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*
*In the 18th and 19th centuries, homeland of the Comanches (“Lords of the South Plains”). The Comanches traded with the Spanish, and later the Mexican and Texan lands adjacent to Comancheria, while other bands raided these territories, stealing horses, mules, cattle and maize, rather than exchange buffalo meat and hides for these items like the “good” Comanches. These bands complimented one another and gave the Comanches the upper hand over the Spanish, Mexicans and Texans, who didn’t know how to cope with the subtleties of the ”savages”.
Trumpets please. I am quite a prophet, ain’t I. Recently I wrote, “… many more ordinary S’poreans will realise that the internet is not a “cowboy” town or injun territory where one can get away with anything. It is a place where if the authorities are determined, they can identify users … What next? A minister suing someone for defamatory comments made on the internet by the latter, comments he tot was “safe” because his identity was “hidden”? You heard it here first …”.
Since then, Yawning Bread and then TRE each got a letter from the lawyers of the Foreign Minister and the PM respectively, telling them to remove defamatory articles. I could become a fortune teller, couldn’t I?
Seriously, the letters from the ministers’ lawyers show the fifth phase of the still in progress evolution of the governing PAP’s attitude towards the New Media (internet 2.0 and the social media).
Phase 1 was to ignore the New Media. It didn’t exist, and wouldn’t affect public opinion, unlike the traditional media. Well it existed, and it did affect public opinion (for example in the 2006 general election when a photo of a WP’ rally showed S’poreans that it was true the constructive, nation-building local media were “fixing” the Opposition).
Phase 2 was to pretend to ignore the New Media while actually reading what appeared there. On the surface, the government and the PAP ignored the New Media. Examples:
– There were no official replies to queries that appeared on the ST’s Online Forum. Official replies were made only to queries published in ST’s Forum pages.
– TOC’s stories on the homeless were referred to by VivianB as “noise”, even after he led raids on the camps of the homeless.
Well this didn’t work. So Phase 3 was to continue pretending to ignore the New Media while trying to seduce the leading players by making them feel important. Example: Injun Chief bloggers were invited to have tea and biscuits in “secret” with second tier PAPpies (the NCOs) like Zaqy and Baey. Sometimes, a less important first tier PAPpie like George Yeo would grant an audience in secret. Again this tactic didn’t work. If anything, the leading New Media players were annoyed by the hypocrisy of it all, and by being courted by “lesser PAPpies”, not the ones that mattered like the PM, DPM Teo or Tharman.
Then came a phase where the New Media’s existence was acknowledged and where the likes of Zaqy, Baey and Yeo continued in private vainly to seduce the leading players to see things the PAP way.
Well, we are now in Phase 5, which I analyse to be “threatening them lightly”. In both recent cases, my understanding is that the ministers’ lawyers are not asking for damages or costs, juz for removal of the offending article and some form of acknowledgement that the piece shouldn’t have published.
What’s next? Who knows? The PAP could feel so threatened that it resorts to bankrupting bloggers that defame ministers, or it could organise a counter-insurgency campaign to try to retake lost territory (I’m available to be a hired gun if the pay is good). The Malaysian government has its sheriffs to try to tame cowboy towns. Or it could try a combination of the two.
Senior Minister of State for Information, Communications & the Arts Grace Fu said on Saturday that the challenge of increasing social diversity is likely to become greater as the society evolves and that Singapore must adapt and learn to manage greater diversity in perspectives, value systems and aspirations.
I hope that she is giving the PM and the other PAP leaders the same message and emphasising that the PAP must adapt and learn to manage greater diversity in perspectives, value systems and aspirations. I suspect not. But I’m sure she is telling them that there are emerging trends that “tug” at Singapore’s social fabric. One of these trends is the emergence of social media which has amplified voices beyond what was achievable by the traditional media.
Many years ago, someone who called a party said publicly during the party, “Everyone here is eating and drinking at my expense, but half of you can’t wait to make nasty comments abt me and the party.”
I attended TOC’s do last Friday, and ate more than my fair share. The programme was enjoyable, certainly funnier than if the president had been able to attend. I’m sure that there would be some self-censorship, out of courtesy. One does not offend the guest-of-honour.
So, I hope the Core Team and TOC supporters don’t think that I’m like one of the ungrateful guests at my friend’s party all that many years ago about what I’m going to say.
In 2005, Today newspaper had its fifth anniversary bash. Triumpalism was the in the air, with a slick video boasting of how Today had overcome a dirty tricks campaign by an unnamed media empire. I don’t blame the staff for doing what they did. It was a natural reaction to what they had done: survive and build a loyal readership, despite everything the SPH group could throw at them.
But one Goh Chok Tong in his speech said, ”Today newspaper is only five years old. Compared to The Straits Times, it is still a growing child. The fifth birthday is not really a major milestone whether for a child or a commercial organisation”.
Many guests, self included, tot this was a most ungracious comment even for a “foot-in-mouther” like him. He was after all the guest-of-honour. And just as a host should not offend the guest-of-honour, a well-brought up guest should not offend his host.
The remarks turned out to a harbinger of the castration of the newspaper’s editorial team. A few months later, Today began its long, slow, painful slide into ST Super Lite, losing, by our admittedly low standards, its edginess.
So let’s not be too triumpalist, or too optimistic for TOC, as many were on Friday especially Catherine Lim who gave a great acceptance performance* for TOC’s inaugral Lifetime Achievement Award. Keep Nemesis away. Remember the Gods don’t like Hubris. TOC had two “lucky” escapes or near brushes with death last December when “A significant part of what has been attributed to Mr Seng [by TOC] is false, to be quite blunt about it,” had been proven true by the time the remark was made. No-one from SMRT was willing to admit that anyone from SMRT made the racist comment that MP Han attributed to “SMRT PR person”. http://www.asiaone.com/News/Latest%2BNews/Singapore/Story/A1Story20111225-318099.html
I’m sure you know what one “lucky” escape is (It got the facts right). But the other is less obvious. Suppose if TOC had done what Cherian George and the Law minister wanted it to do and what ST would have done (remember Cherian has very, very close connections to ST): print the headline,”MP says SMRT PR person says …”.
TOC would have been soundly beaten up by Cherian, the minister and many others for not checking whether Han had quoted SMRT correctly. Suppose also that sensitive Malays or trouble seeking Indians, or both, had rioted, destroying SMRT property and injuring staff and police: TOC would not have had a birthday do.
The Core Team would be in jail (courtesy of ISA) while the Public Prosecutor decided which law to use to ensure that the judges could throw them in jail, and throw away the key.
So TOC and supporters: be humble, watchful and careful. Better to be alive and productive than to die and be remembered like a legend. Lions like Dr Chee and JBJ live too dangerously for “lesser mortals” like self. Be like Chiam**: Do the right thing in a low-key but determined way. The water buffalo can be just as dangerous to its enemies as the lion.
Mrs Chiam got it right when she said, “TOC’s now the mainstream, because Singaporeans say so”. So, no more hand wringing Ravi Philemon about not being accepted by the PAP, government and their friends as part of the media*. Vox Populi, the people have spoken.
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*I’ll rant abt the substance of her performance after the CNY hols.
**Taz not to say I agree with everything he does. Brickbats after the CNY hols.
***Unless TOC’s Core Team want to be part of the mega-bucks establishment or have the dubious honour of the likes of ministers and MPs like Zaqy acknowledge officially that they “engage” with TOC, or have the honour of the president attending a TOC do, or any combination of the three. Me? Prostitution sounds a more honourable way to earn serious money. And I’m anti-social. Threes a crowd.
Well Grace Fu’s actions have confirmed that the PAP still has problems using social media, showing that Chua Chu Kang GRC MP Zaqy Mohamad (he is on PAP committee tasked to tame the Internet) was talking rubbish late last year when he boasted, “The first few years were about the PAP sensing the platforms and understanding how to use it. Now it’s really (about) how to use these platforms for political mileage and political advantage.” (Emphasis mine)
Grace Fu’s use of Facebook to bitch* abt her pay cut effective destroyed the PM’s attempt to use a deep ministerial salary cut to rebuild political capital and reclaim the moral high ground for the PAP. Before her outburst, which to be fair, from which she repented rather quickly, or rather claimed that we “misunderstood” her (Like we misunderstood Han or Han misunderstood SMRT’s SVP? Wah PAP sure got great miscommunicators? Or we “Lesser Mortals” are daft?), the critics could only rail in the abstract against the quantum, principles and methodology adopted by Gerald Ee and friends. S’poreans would soon have got bored with the abstractions. All the PAP needed to do was to sit tight for a while, until the critics bored S’poreans with hot air, and exhausted themselves.
(With all due respect to the critics, they have nothing new to say. “The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.”: Ecclesiastes 1:9)
After Grace Fu’s outburst, the critics had an alleged PAP princess** to beat up and abuse. And that they did, inflicting seriously collateral damage on the PM, cabinet and PAP.
This is not the first time that a female PAPy’s use (misuse?) of social media backfired on the PAP and PM.It has happened before.
Tin Pei Ling was earmarked to be Young PAPpies’ superstar and celebrity, showing that one could be young, fun-loving, brainless, parrot-like, wooden in public, marry well and have a career, and be a PAPpy on the make. The narrative didn’t work because the script did not tell her to privatise her Facebook page, making her pixs etc hostages to fortune. She compounded her initial mistake by appointing “Fat Fingered” Denise as her Facebook administrator. Denise He promptly broke the law, getting a serious warning from the police. Netizens wanted Denise and Tin to be hung, drawn and quartered, which was never going to happen. I mean even drug mules only get hung if convicted.
So should the PAP appoint a social media commissar to clear all messages before they are made public? Take out the spontaneity rather than allow bird brains or air heads to destroy “The best laid plans o’ mice an’ men”?
Or tell ministers and MPs to be like MP Zaqy? A Malaysian Malay told me that his S’pore relations noticed that he (Zaqy) is never a leader, always a follower on Facebook. He allowed Halimah (ladies first?) to come out guns a’blazing at Han before he added his stab wounds. Wait for a cue, then action, is the message he would have told Ms Fu? Read the rest of this entry »
There were two nice Christmas prezies this year, the return of the infamous Temasek Review in the form of TR Emeritus and this piece which implicitly supported the stand TOC took when TOC “exposed” PAP MP Han. In the old days, TR would explicitly rubbish TOC and Han.
In the 18th and 19th centuries, some bands of Comanches (“Lords of the South Plains”) traded with the Spanish, and later the Mexican and Texan lands adjacent to Comancheria, while other bands raided these territories, stealing horses, mules, cattle and maize, rather than exchange buffalo meat and hides for these items like the “good” Comanches. These bands complimented one another and gave the Comanches the upper hand over the Spanish, Mexicans and Texans, who didn’t know how to cope with the subtleties of the ”savages”.
TR Emeritus’ and TOC’s strategies, tactics, aims, and means will necessarily differ but that’s no excuse for not being civilised, and supportive (wherever possible) to one another. Both are moving broadly in the same direction (or climbing the same mountain?). Each sees the landscape differently, taz all.
Wishing TR Emeritus a fruitful new year. Keep on the tradition of hammering the Foreign Trash (who think they are Foreign Talents) and their supporters. Try to find out what happened to the Temasek JC tutor who hates S’poreans? But don’t get xenophobic. Sad to say the old TR often got carried away, and crossed this broad river too often.
And continue fishing out the PAPpies who do bad things (Whatever happened to the NTUC guy who had to stand down as a PAP candidate MP because of shumething in his background. Is he still a big shot in NTUC?). Get to work TRE, TOC has set a very, very standard recently. Even the old TR never achieved such a feat.
Happy hols all. No posting until 3 January 2012. Drink or drive, don’t do both.
(Or “Why I am complacent about having a code of conduct for the Internet)
So a blogger is upset because an NTU academic who studies the new media agrees with the government that a code of conduct for netizens is useful.
Many moons ago, bloggers were unhappy with the Institute of Policy Studies’ (IPS) study, Impact of new media on general election 2011, which concluded that the new media wasn’t that important in the election.They tried to explain why the new media was more important than what the IPS people tot it was.
I tot the study and most of the bloggers’ comments were missing the point. I tot the new media played an important role in the GE for two reasons:
– It made public, information that in the past was confined, in the absence of MSM reporting, to smallish groups. To me the classic example was the 1988 GE in Eunos GRC. Most S’poreans (self included) did not know JBJ and friends had so such support there until after the results were announced. Contrast that with the 2011 GE when S’poreans knew via new media that Aljunied, East Coast and Joo Chiat were places where the PAP could lose. Of course, the new media could also give wrong info: like the SDP could win in Holland Village GRC. I mean the SDP did so-so only. Were we conned.
– Via making info public and via direct feedback from unhappy readers, the new media forced the local MSM to be a little less biased in its election coverage. There was a little less government propoganda masquerading as objective news and analysis. (BTW, I was one of the persons helping out on the survey that tried to quantify the perceived extent of how skewed was the reporting of the local newspapers. Believe you me, it was depressing measuring the large gap in coverage.)
No code of conduct can restrict the power of new media to do the above in any situation unless the code of conduct was drafted by the North Korean or Chinese government or one Tan Kin Lian**, hence my complacency.
On the point of feedback to traditional media, I recently came across a posting made several moons ago on an Economist blog, part of which I reproduce to explain how the new media influences the traditional media:
As an employee of the mainstream media, I would say that in my experience loud and convinced feedback from a large segment of the public will usually influence the treatment afforded to their subjects of concern. He goes on Indeed, this is precisely what has just happened to Mr Keller, as one can see from the difference in tone between his Monday column and his Tuesday blog post. Browbeating the mainstream media for favourable coverage, in short, is an important part of any protest movement, and while Mr Keller is right that formulating demands for things the political system can deliver is a crucial step towards effectiveness, he should also recognise that the drubbing he’s just received is also a step towards effectiveness. Piece
So keep on shouting and bullying. It works! Read the rest of this entry »
(Note: In Westerns, the Comancherios were the bad guys who sell guns and whisky to the Comanches, “Lords of the South Plains” and other “lesser” Indians of the North American Southern Great Plains*.)
Last Thurday, I analysed how the NSP could be perceived given that three active actors in the “Jason Neo” and “Donaldson” cases were NSP supporters.
Here the focus is on counterfactuals. What if Neo had been an opposition party “volunteer” while Firdaus, the chap who exposed him, was a Young PaPpie or “volunteer”; Abdul Salim a PAP member; and Amran Junid (the person who complained about Donaldson) a PAP supporter?
Would:
– netizens have focused not on Jason Neo and Donaldson, but on the complainants and their perceived motives; and
– the local MSM be so laid-back in reporting the“Jason Neo” and “Donaldson” incidents?
Why were netizens so “easy” on Firdaus who spread the photo? The misdeed had been pointed in March 2011 by Neo’s Facebook’s “friends”. He explained that it was not meant to be taken seriously, and apologised. But he did not remove the post which he should have done. As none of them thought to advise, suggest or demand that he remove the post, I suspect, he tot he had done enough to “purge” himself, not that this excuses him.
But no-one it seems has “condemned” Firdaus for spreading the story even after Neo had apologised and taken the photo down
Nor has anyone except http://piaroh.wordpress.com/2011/11/23/bababa/ and me (in a round about way) questioned his motives. Was he (and others) trying to “fix” the YPAP, the PAP and the government, by associating them with Neo and his caption? A complainant, Abdul Salim, was a NSP member according to TOC; and Firdaus, remember, was a “volunteer” at NSP according to Yahoo!.
But what if Firdaus was a known YPAP member and Jason Neo was known as a NSP “volunteer”. Would the story have attracted so much interest on the Internet?
I’m sure that many netizens would have dismissed his actions as a Young PAP plot to discredit the NSP, the other opposition parties, the new media and us netizens, especially since a PAP member, Abdul Salim, made a complaint to the police . They would defend Neo, pointing out that he had apologised twice, the first time in March 2011 when his Facebook friends “scolded” him, and had taken down the photo after Firdaus complained to him. But still Firdaus “poured kerosene over the fire” by spreading the photo over the Internet. If anyone should be charged for sedition, it should be Firdaus the Young PaPpie, not Neo the NSP “volunteer”, I’m sure, netizens would say in this parallel world.
(As it is, someone posted on TOC, “This saga is pre-planned by PAP so they can used this excuse to formalise new laws to control the cyberspace to restrict ppl’s freedom of speech.”)
Can we therefore be surprised that the government and PAP view the Internet as Comanche territory (many of the real cowboy towns were in Comanche territory or Comancheria) and netizens as Comancheros?
But the government and PAP should realise there is a reason (or is it an excuse?) why we netizens tend to be so sceptical or cynical of them.
Would the local MSM’s coverage of this incident and that of the Donaldson case have been so low-key as to be almost non-existent, if Firdaus had been a Young PaPpie, and Neo the NSP “volunteer”? I think most readers would agree with me we would then have had story after story covering every angle. Especially since Abdul Salim was a PAP member, and Amran Junid was a PAP supporter (Remember we are in a parallel world) who exposed Donaldson.
We netizens would be guillty of sedition, irresponsibility, racism maybe even sodomy and pimping: by association.
The local MSM editorials and commentaries would be calling for more than a code of conduct. They would call for cyber laws to punish the likes of Neo and Donaldson.
Can the government, PAP and the local, constructive, nation- building media be surprised that more and more S’poreans are turning to new media for their news and analysis of local current affairs?
And can they blame bloggers and other Commancheros for trying to put some balance on the news and analysis S’poreans get, by putting more emphasis on what the Opposition and other ignored (by the government, PAP and local MSM) voices say. Why not give more space (plenty more) in the local MSM to “other” voices and see if more friendly injuns appear in Comancheria? (Remember the US cavalry relied on non hostile Indian scouts to track and locate the Comanches and other hostile Indians.) If no non hostile Injuns appear,, the PAP and government can revert to the status quo.
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*The truth is more complex. The word “Comancheros” was the name gven to people in New Mexico who traded with the Comanches, the dominant tribe (think PAP and you get an idea of how dominant the Comanches were) of the Southern Great Plains of North America. They traded guns, ammunition, tools, cloth, flour, tobacco, and bread for hides, livestock and slaves from the Comanches. As the Comancheros may not have had sufficient access to modern rifles and ammunition, there is scholarly disagreement about how much they traded these to the Comanches. They were funded in part by US army officers based in New Mexico.
I was also planning to comment on Baey Yam Keng’s speech on how the government should handle the new media. Fortunately, I came across a comment by “Jonathan” on TOC. Other than the PS, it covers all the points I was planning to make.
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On the whole, he presents himself to be a reformer. He wants to loosen the grip on traditional and new media alike. He mentioned repeatedly that it is not necessary and not possible to engage every statement made online.
However, his intention is at best half-baked for the part on traditional media. He wants to make mainstream media to be the benchmark of the online discussions. This amounts to saying that mainstream media will still be the mouthpiece of the Government (or the ruling party). I believe there he has contradicted himself and this shows that he may lack the conviction in media reform after all.
The part about teaching students “online media literacy” is alright in itself, but such proposal is always met with skepticism. People are afraid that it will be a form of covet propaganda programme or censorship, given the not-so-illustrious track record of the ruling party on this matter. When faced with the problem of indeterminacy of Mr. Baey’s true intention, we are forced to look at his party colleagues to search for a coherent answer. To me, the ruling party’s stance is on the rather dire side.
As such, while I appreciate Mr. Baey’s audacity to propose something rather avant-garde, I cannot trust that his speech alone, without the backing of powerful PAP figures, will lead to any actual media reform which the liberals will like.
ps. He ended his speech in Chinese by saying that he seconds the motion. What motion is he talking about?
