Facebook submits to Singapore government, labels post 'fake news'

[mongeese]

A hot potato: Under orders from the Singapore government, Facebook has labeled a post by alternate news website States Times Review as containing lies. The post in question, which remains available, contained “scurrilous accusations against the elections department, the prime minister, and the election process in Singapore” according to the government.

The post claims a whistleblower who allegedly exposed a political candidate’s Christian “extremist” affiliations was arrested for fabricating fake news, and the government deleted his Facebook account. The Singapore government denies both counts, saying that no one has been arrested and that Facebook removed the page of their own accord.

The post’s author, Alex Tan, was born in Singapore but is now an Australian citizen living in Australia and can’t be made to alter the post by the Singapore government (though they did try). If he was in Singapore, however, he could have been fined over $700,000 and imprisoned for five years under October’s Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation bill, commonly known as the ‘fake news’ law.

While the law’s intention is to limit the amount of fake news Singapore citizens come across, it has raised concerns about freedom of speech. The first time the law was enacted was last Monday when an opposition politician was asked to add a note to his Facebook post about state investment funds saying it “contains false statements of fact.”

Facebook was not required to alter Tan’s post or hide it but add that “Facebook is legally required to tell you that the Singapore government says this post has false information.” Their amendment has a tone of displeasure.

Facebook infamously permits outright lies in its political advertisements, as Senator Warren demonstrated in October, except when legally required not to as has occurred in Singapore. In a statement to the BBC, they expressed hope that assurances that the law would not affect freedom of expression would result in a “measured and transparent approach” to future implementation.

Image Credit: William Iven on Unsplash

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https://www.techspot.com/news/82978-facebook-submits-singapore-government-labels-post-fake-news.html

 

[ZedRM]

Good for Singapore, bad for Facebook, good for Facebook users. These kinds of laws should be made everywhere.

 

[Uncle Al]

Fakebook needs to make it a world wide standard before they get shut down entirely .... which is still a good idea no matter what they do!

 

[psycros]

It would be really, really strange for a Singaporean citizen to have ties to "extremist" Christians. OTOH, a lot of the government's heavy-handed policies have been implemented primarily to combat the spread of fundamentalist Islam and its associated ills within the country.

 

[quadibloc]

If Facebook indeed only noted that the government of Singapore claims the post has false information, and is not asserting that the post actually is false, then, while one may still consider the action of the government of Singapore regrettable, this does not rise to the level of something that makes me want to write a letter to Trump advocating immediate regime change.

The people of Singapore still have a chance to make their own decisions despite this, which I think is the key distinction.

 

[quadibloc]

I thought that Singapore had a heavy-handed government before extremist Islam was even a thing. (Or, more specifically, a thing that people in the Western world bothered worrying about.)

 

[Reallyhow]

It would be really, really strange for a Singaporean citizen to have ties to "extremist" Christians. OTOH, a lot of the government's heavy-handed policies have been implemented primarily to combat the spread of fundamentalist Islam and its associated ills within the country.

You should really take a look at how horrifyingly regressive extremist Christians are. Especially when it comes to Pence, and how eager they are to snatch human rights away.

Oh, and you don't need to put quotes around extremist if you're going to omit them from fundamentalist. Both stripes are socially caustic.

 

[Reallyhow]

While we're here:

Be critical of /why/ you worry about "Fundamentalist" Islam. How much of it is sensation vs threat?

Secondly, be critical of /why/ it's a threat. If a certain government didn't go around toppling democratically elected societies, perhaps this wouldn't be a problem in the first place.

 

[brucek]

If a certain government didn't go around toppling democratically elected societies, perhaps this wouldn't be a problem in the first place.

Sounds like time for one of those Fake News warning banners.

 

[Squid Surprise]

Difference between a dictatorship and a democracy....

 

[Markoni35]

Christian extremists? How about those others, which are a lot worse. And omnipresent.

How about Albanian/Kosovan mafia, which is now bigger than Cosa Nostra. They've taken almost all crime in Europe, from Switzerland to UK, also in Thailand, Australia, United States, and almost all countries in the world. Nobody in the news space is mentioning them, even though they are 3rd mafia in the world.

Just for comparison, there are 900,000 Polish people in UK. Poles comprise 10% of the prison population. There are 13,000 Albanians/Kosovans in the UK and they comprise 8% of the prison population. That means Kosovans/Albanians are 70 times more criminal than Poles. And yet, until recently, UK media was constantly spitting on Poles, which steal cars, instead of Albanians, which are involved in murders, racketeering, stealing little girls, selling them for prostitution, beating and killing the prostitutes in the cruelest ways (outraging even hard-core UK criminals), dealing heroin, weed, smuggling ISIL refugees to EU, etc. Worst of the worst scam that has ever walked the Earth. And no article about them.