Does the alternative media have anything to fear?

Part of the proposed changes to the election rules announced in Parliament last Thursday involves the registration of ‘political’ websites with the Media Development Authority. In the period of the general elections, these websites will be unable to publish any form of political advertising for any one party or individual during the 24-hours ‘cooling-off’ period, which is also newly implemented.

The traditional mainstream media, however, will be spared from the ‘cooling-off’ period as they have been trusted to provide a neutral, objective and perspective-free report on the General Elections that will not rouse the passion of the voters.

The definition of ‘political websites’ remains unclear at this point of time. It is uncertain whether popular socio-political websites such as The Online Citizen, The Temasek Review or even forums such as the Hardwarezone or Sammyboy would fall under the ambit of ‘political websites’ that require registration with the Media Development Authority, or if political websites would just be a direct reference to websites belonging to political parties.

At risk would also be the personal blogging websites of popular activists such as Seelan Palay.

Contravening this newly imposed law would result in a fine of up to $1,000 and/or a jail of up to 12 months. Given that these offences are also made seizable, a warrant is not needed for the police to carry out their offences. Computer hardware may also possibly be seized during the arrest.

The Irrational Alternative Media?

A overwhelming amount of non-governmental internet websites touching on socio-political issues in Singapore have been generally critical of governmental policies.

But it is indeed another thing to say that these political websites rouse the passion of the voters through irrational discourse, or inflammatory diatribes without basis in facts and reason.

If anything, majority of these sites that enjoy the greatest amount of consistent readership make their cases in a civil, rational and intellectual fashion.

Even if the strong elections fervor ineluctably skews one report or opinion piece ‘irrationally’ against another, surely all parties should be given the liberty to express their viewpoints up till the actual moment of voting. And this includes parties belonging to the establishment and non-establishment alike.

It certainly does not make sense to claim that Singaporeans will only vote for the opposition because they are irrational, or swept away by the fervor of the elections at that point of time.

Nothing is achieved by the 24-hours ‘cooling-off’ period, which may only serve to allow for certain questions to remain unanswered.

As argued by SDP’s John Tan, the blanket ban on the alternative media will take away a very useful advantage that SDP has built up through the alternative media. He is right.

The blanket ban seeks to correct a problem that isn’t even there in the first place.

If the archives of SDP’s website is an accurate reflection of their future opinion pieces, most of their articles are based on a sound logic and careful reasoning.

This is of course not saying that their opinion pieces are devoid of value judgments, of which you may come to agree or disagree. But they are undoubtedly as far away from flaming passion in opposition to the government through derogatory articles without any factual basis as one can possibly imagine.

The internet community of Singaporeans has been generally a well-behaved lot. As seen in the recent hoax by Gopalan Nair, the community has moved swiftly and almost collectively to condemn his actions.

If the blanket ban during the cooling off period is extended to sites such as The Online Citizen and The Temasek Review, it may be very well signal the inception of more restrictions to come to these ‘political’ websites in the future.

The alternative media may just have to helplessly accept its fate.

Readers: Tell us if this blanket ban on 'political websites' will influence
your voting decision in the next elections.