Regulation of Political commentary on the Internet in Singapore

Singapore is a country, highly dependent on its international relations. Due to the lack of natural resources, trade and tourism is needed to sustain its economy. The basis for this is stability, to attain that high a level, cooperation is required, between the higher ups and the lower downs, especially for a state where manpower is the most important asset.

To empower the people while empowering the government – thus the democratic system in Singapore. And in every democratic system, there is the voting system, which is extremely essential for the popular government to be chosen leading to a high chance that there will be a common agreement in the society on any policies.

In this age, with the internet, the fairness of these votes may be compromised. The internet though has many advantages, like the easy access to knowledge and free-for-all property, has the major problem mainly the credibility and anonymity of sources.

People do put false or biased information on the internet for different purposes, and one of these purposes could well be to mislead voters, and to lead the voters in the right direction again is not easy. If you read about someone's negative opinion on a particular PAP policy, but weren't given the full story from this text, you will have a negative impression on PAP. This isn't fair to PAP or any other party who encounters this problem. To correct this wrong perception of the party, the party must first know that there is such a site (which will take time) and then an explanation must be given. To who? To anyone who has read that post, but they cannot accurately pinpoint who they are so the explanation must be given to the public. If there were many such posts, too much time and effort is needed to correct such false accusations directed to those who read the posts which could just be only a few. The longer it takes for the rumour to change, the more difficult to change and more people will be influenced by it.

In 2001, the Government allowed candidates and parties to use the internet for election advertising. Photos and manifestoes, chat rooms, membership recruitment messages, and announcements of meetings on the web or through email are all acceptable. So, why did they allow it then but not now? One can wonder whether PAP did it for their own self-benefit, knowing that the other parties’ funds are not as high as theirs, is it fair to restrict them from online campaigning which is less expensive but still effective?

Still, I agree with this ban, despite it being difficult to strike a balance in equality, it is needed to give the most accurate results of the opinions of the people without the interference of others’ comments and suggestions.