Substituting government regulation with community moderation is a principle that was contained in the Bloggers 13 proposal, which I co-authored with Choo Zheng Xi of The Online Citizen, Alex Au of Yawning Bread, Gerald Giam and other bloggers. Our report said that bloggers were prepared to take steps towards responsible, accountable blogging. It even proposed an Internet Content Consultative Committee (IC3) as an avenue for community moderation. But this had to be part of comprehensive reforms in which the government would roll back regulation of political debate. Singapore's laws and regulations on freedom of expression needed to be revised to conform with international norms and best practices, the position paper said.

The more experienced and better-run blogs know that they have nothing to lose, and much to gain, by committing to a voluntary code of ethics – it would help distinguish them from the pack. This applies in mainstream journalism (it is usually highest-quality news outlets – like the New York Times and BBC – that invest the most in accountability mechanisms such as codes of ethics and ombudsmen) and should apply in citizen journalism as well. In a crowded market, organisations can "brand by values", as some journalism thought leaders have put it.

But any code of ethics or mechanism for community moderation will only take off if it is devised entirely by practitioners, with not even the slightest hint of official influence or control. Even if totally independent, it would be difficult enough for any group of bloggers, no matter how well respected, to persuade others to adopt a code. Herding cats would be simpler. The merest whiff of government involvement would destroy any chance of success – that would be like trying to herd cats while walking a dog.

The best thing the government can do to encourage the process is to provide a clear and unambiguous signal that it will not tighten the regulation of political speech. As Bloggers 13 argued, Singapore needs something like a Malaysian-style "no censorship" guarantee.

So, if bloggers do not respond to the government's calls to self-regulate, it is not necessarily for want of a sense of social responsibility. It's more likely to be due to a lack of trust in the government's commitment to freedom of speech.

The internet has provided a public platform for the best of human characteristics to be displayed, but also for the worst. We don’t know whether the internet makes things worse by encouraging anti-social speech, or whether it just publicises what used to be said in private. What is clear is that, in the past, gatekeepers of the mainstream media – newspaper editors and broadcast news producers – acted as filters to make sure that any offensive speech from the ground could not reach the wider public. The internet bypasses these gatekeepers, which means that the journey from thought to private utterance to public statement is almost instant.

No matter how hard we work at developing media literacy, we should not expect to be rid of all racially offensive speech online. There are two broad ways to respond to these breaches. We can reach out horizontally and together with our fellow citizens repair the damage by persuading others to reject harmful ideas. Or, we can reach up vertically to government, getting the authorities to act against irresponsible speech by using the law. The advantage of the latter is that it seems more efficient, punishing those who cross the line of acceptability and violate social norms, and deterring others from doing the same. The horizontal approach works through persuasion rather than the law, so it is slower and not foolproof.

All societies use a mix of approaches to address offensive speech. In international law, like at the European court of human rights and more and more jurisdictions, there is growing feeling that the law should really be a last resort and only used for the most extreme speech – speech that incites violence in a very direct way, or that is part of a campaign that violates the rights of minorities to live free of discrimination. In contrast, simply insulting and offending others, even if feelings are very hurt, is not seen as something that should invite a legal response. Using the law to protect feelings is too great an encroachment on freedom of speech.

Singapore draws the line differently. Our laws are written very broadly, such that any sort of offence, even if it does not threaten imminent violence, is seen as deserving of strict regulation. This probably reflects a very strong social consensus that race and religion should be handled delicately. So we tend to rely on strong government. The state protects racial and religious sensibilities from offence, using censorship when there’s a danger of words and actions causing hurt.

Thus, for several years now, we have seen many examples of offensive online speech prompting police investigations. In 2005, three young bloggers were convicted under the Sedition Act for racist comments. There have been other cases since then where the police have been called in to investigate offensive speech.

These cases are striking in two ways. First, it is interesting that in almost all cases, state action was instigated by complaints from members of the public. This is quite unlike political censorship, where action is initiated by the government, often with great resistance and opposition from netizens. In a string of cases involving racial and religious offence, however, it’s the netizens who tend to demand action, sometimes acting like a lynch mob.

Second, it is striking that in many cases, the offensive messages were spread further by those reporting the offence. In one case late last year, a blogger posted a religiously offensive image on his own facebook wall to warn others that this image was making the rounds. One of his so-called friends took offence and circulated it more widely on the internet in addition to making a police report. In the case involving a Christian pastor’s offensive sermon, most Singaporeans who have seen the video did not see it on the church website where the video was originally found, but via Hardware Zone, one of Singapore’s most popular forums. It was put there not by the pastor himself or his church members, but by someone who wanted action taken against the pastor.

This pattern is paradoxical. What is the justification for strong police action against any form of speech? Why do we sometimes feel that it may not be enough to counter bad speech with good speech in free and open debate, and that we must instead use the law to stop the bad speech? Surely, it must be because we think the bad speech is so dangerous that it can cause immediate harm; or because we don’t trust the public to respond rationally, so we don’t know if good speech would indeed triumph in open debate. Usually, if we call in the authorities, it must be because we have a mental picture of offensive speech being like lighting a match in a combustible atmosphere. It is dangerous and there’s no time to debate the merits of that match – we just have to put it out.

The irony of most of the cases that we have seen in the past few years is that the people demanding government action, as if the offensive words were explosive, were also those who helped to spread them. It is like helping to spread a fire while calling for the fire brigade.

Unless these complainants were just plain irrational or irresponsible, which I don’t think they were, their act of spreading the offensive content must mean that they did not actually believe that the expression was really that dangerous in the sense of prompting violence through reprisal attacks or riots. In reposting the offensive words or pictures, they showed that they actually trusted the public enough to respond sympathetically – they had faith that enough people would add their voices to the outrage that they themselves felt when they saw the offensive images or videos or words. And they were right: in every case, when these offensive messages were publicised, the overwhelming sentiment was that these messages were wrong, were anti-Singaporean. People who may have shared those thoughts were quickly reminded that they were not in line with Singaporean norms. The public debate reinforced our multi-racial and multi-religious foundations.

This then raises the question, why the need to involve the police at all? If Singaporeans are grown-up enough to defend their society against offensive speech, why have calls for prosecution and censorship become the automatic response?

I wonder if this is an example of the well-known habit of unthinkingly relying on government to solve all our problems even when, with a little bit of effort in the form of grassroots action can do the job. One problem with the culture of expecting police action whenever we feel insulted or offended is that this mechanism can be overused and abused. Those most likely to complain against any expression are the least tolerant members of each religious or ethnic community. Very quickly, therefore, the most dogmatic and extreme spokesmen set the tone for the rest of society.

Yes, we need to beware of offensive speech that is part of a deliberate campaign of hate-mongering. But let’s not be naïve. It’s not just giving offence, but also taking offence, that can be used as part of a political game. Usually, what looks like spontaneous and visceral reactions to offensive speech – angry demonstrations and so on – are orchestrated by activists who spot a political advantage in an outpouring of anger. In Singapore, I doubt that every netizen who demanded action against this or that offensive message was purely driven by concern for Singapore’s multiracial fabric. I am quite sure that in some cases, they simply saw the opportunity for some kind of political advantage against individuals or groups that they have on-going political feud with.

There is also overwhelming evidence internationally that the effect of outlawing blasphemy – which many well-meaning Singaporeans might intuitively feel is a good idea – backfires by allowing religious majorities to persecute religious minorities. Since offensiveness is subjective, it is possible for the dominant group to claim that its beliefs are being blasphemed by the peaceful religious expressions of a minority group. It can thus use the law to marginalise religious minorities. We see this in Malaysia. In Singapore, it should not be up to the state to decide which religious beliefs or schools of thought within a religion deserve legal protection – possible victims of such a move might include Singapore’s small Shia Muslim minority, which has long felt marginalised by the dominant Sunni school.

Another problem with this vertical approach, reaching up to higher authorities, is that it perpetuates a dependency on government and doesn’t do much for building horizontal trust, that is, trust between citizens. Such trust is ultimately the best defence in a world where we will never be able to control 100% of the messages 100% of the time, even if government regulators were given more powers.

Horizontal trust is important, because that is what helps us put things in perspective when we face provocations. Most offensive messages are not, by themselves, threatening, They are like a lighted a match. Whether there is an explosion depends on the context. It is mistrust that acts like an accelerant, like combustible gas in a confined space. Increasingly, we cannot control the text – the match. But we can influence the context. By building horizontal trust, our society will become more resilient against the inevitable frictions and frustrations of living among people of different cultures.

I believe that in many cases, Singaporeans make police reports when they encounter offensive speech not necessarily because they want the speaker to be punished, but because they want a strong public signal to reaffirm our multi-racial and multi-religious principles. They want reassurance. They want to bring the weight of moderate public opinion to bear on a dispute, plus perhaps a clear signal from the authorities as to what constituted acceptable speech. If so, why not just demand such statements instead of legal action. Even better, why not mobilise and organise civil society against such breaches.

The next time people encounter racist or religiously offensive speech, it would be nice to see swift responses from credible and respected civil society groups, Members of Parliament, and other ordinary citizens. If the speaker doesn’t get the message, organise boycotts, for example, and give him or her the clear message that our society isn’t going to take such offence lying down. The more we can respond ourselves through open debate and grassroots action, without the need to ask law and order to step in, the stronger our society will be.

Speaking truth to power: 4 modes

The case illustrates a genuine dilemma:  there is no obviously superior way to engage in online criticism. Every strategy involves trade-offs, its benefits accompanied by costs. There are at least four approaches available to those who want to engage in critical commentary.

1. Establishment critic

Establishment critics are those who try to stay within Singapore’s informal “OB markers” as well as within the letter and spirit of the law. This is the territory of the Straits Times, Today and Yahoo! (included here because its appetite for publishing articles that cross OB markers is not significantly greater than the mainstream media’s even though its livelier comments give the impression that it is more free-wheeling).

Anyone who wants use these channels to deliver a critical message must learn to say things between the lines, giving face to government and never challenging its authority. The vast majority of vocal netizens are contemptuous of such pussyfooting. But establishment critics recognise – even if they do not like – the dominance of the PAP. They believe that if you want change, you have to get buy-in from government, and that this is only possible if you maintain its trust by staying within OB markers.

2. Gadfly

This is the term that Catherine Lim uses to describe her political role, and it’s an apt one to describe the many bloggers who, like her, are happy to cross OB markers. They include The Online Citizen, Alex Au, Ng E-Jay, Martyn See and others. They persistently irritate officialdom, having decided that the governments’ irritability is its own fault and that it needs to grow up and tolerate reasoned criticism, minus any comforting balm. Gadflies buzz about in the open, within slapping distance. They are not deterred by the risk of losing political capital because they do not need it – they tend to be self-employed and not dependent on the government’s blessings.

However, gadfly bloggers try (not always successfully) to remain on the right side of the law – including Defamation (which means refusing to circulate unverifiable rumours) and the Films Act (which is why Martyn See does not post his banned videos). By operating openly, gadfly bloggers can forge strong links with civil society groups and/or opposition parties, since face-to-face communication is still the best way to build trust.

3. Guerrilla

By using this label, I’m not suggesting that this category is made up of violent individuals. Guerrilla warfare is a strategy designed to deal with much more powerful adversaries. It involves using non-legal methods to hit the enemy where it hurts, then retreating quickly to safe hideouts. Guerrilla bloggers, similarly, have no regard for either OB markers or the laws restricting expression. While traditional guerrillas hide in jungles, guerrilla bloggers use cyberspace to keep them safe. Most operate anonymously; those who use their real names are physically located outside of Singapore.

Temasek Review used to be the standard bearer of guerrilla blogs. With its change in direction, Sammyboy could be taking over this role. Guerrilla blogs are the natural outlets for whistleblowers. Their weakness, however, is that they unable to forge offline connections. Note that even opposition parties would be reluctant to embrace anti-government individuals who do not have the courage to come out into the open, since such people may not have the stomach or stamina for the kind of fight that the opposition is engaged in.

4. Jiujitsu

This term comes from Gene Sharp, who uses it to describe the method of civil disobedience. Like the martial art of jiujitsu, this political tactic involves using the adversary’s superior strength against itself. It was perfected by the leaders of non-violent resistance in nationalist and civil rights struggles of the 20^th century.

Jiujitsu politics is about deliberately and non-violently flouting laws that are seen as unjust; inviting and allowing the government to crack down forcefully; ensuring that everything happens in full view of the public; using the imbalance of power to provoke moral outrage; and thus swinging the tide of domestic and international public opinion against the government. Offline, the key Singaporean exponent of this method has been Chee Soon Juan. Online, the best example is Gopalan Nair’s “Here I Am” blog postings in 2008, when he publicly declared that he was defaming PAP leaders and provided his address and phone number so that they could come and get him. Given that the Singapore public has proven notoriously difficult to prod into moral outrage, it is not surprising that jiujitsu blogging is extremely rare.

Border disputes

Although blogs tend to plant themselves squarely in one category or another, there will always be disputes over where exactly the boundaries lie. This doesn’t affect free-floating individual bloggers, but can be a problem for organisations and group blogs. Since OB markers are often only apparent in hindsight, establishment media always face internal debate and dissension over whether a particular columnist is straying out of the establishment critic role and becoming a gadfly.

Gadfly group blogs, meanwhile, may have internal disagreements about legal risks. One example was The Online Citizen’s policy towards Cooling Off Day in last year’s General Election. When I interviewed founding editor Andrew Loh some months earlier, he made it clear that he was inclined to ignore the Cooling Off Day restriction on principle – this was meant to be a ban on campaigning, and he did not see why citizens should be stopped from discussing the campaign. The letter of the law exempts licensed news media from the ban, so it could be argued that the spirit of the law should give citizen media similar leeway. Loh was the editor in charge of TOC’s election coverage, and duly published articles after the guillotine time. He took the calculated risk that TOC could get away with it (which it did). However, I am told that his position was not unanimously supported within TOC – some felt the site should not venture into this grey area. (Ironically, Loh is now being flamed in some sections of cyberspace as a PAP stooge.)

Form versus content

One reason why the choice of strategy can be confusing is that there is no necessary correlation between the political acceptability of the words used and the strength of the criticism that those words contain. Some netizens suspect that if TRE commits to staying within the law, it will be less critical.  The truth is, criticism can be insulting, vulgar and defamatory – and still miss the target. Conversely, criticism can be polite and devastating.

Take, for example, Alex Au’s critique of Lee Hsien Loong’s leadership, published in Yawning Bread last May. Alex certainly ignored the OB marker that citizens should criticise policies but not politicians. But his blog did not cross any legal threshold, including defamation. Working in gadfly mode, Alex keeps within the law. The army of anonymous commentators in Singapore’s guerrilla blogs is much less respectful, but I have yet to read anything there that matches the power of Alex’s critique of the PM. Similarly, even establishment critics – take P. N. Balji's columns in Yahoo!, for example – can deliver more substantial criticism than many netizens, even if the tone is gentler.

TRE’s dilemma

Considering the trade-offs involved in choosing strategies, it's not surprising that TREmeritus’ change of direction has not been smooth. Moving from guerrilla to gadfly has alienated some of its core supporters. It has also had to scramble to manage comments that were in keeping with its old guerrilla mode, but now threaten its transition to gadfly blogging.

After the PM’s defamation threat, it faced a fork in the road. It could cut off Richard Wan – still the only openly identified editor – and return to guerrilla mode, or clean up and press on. It appears to have done the latter. This seems to have sparked something of a reader revolt: it has been swamped with defamatory comments, probably from those are against its tentative steps towards respectability.

The letter from Lee Hsien Yang’s lawyers opened up another possibility. For a moment, it looked as if TRE might adopt the jiujitsu stance. It appeared that it might rebuff the lawyers’ demands and go to court in order to press home its stand on freedom of expression. In every country, from established democracies like the United States to new democracies like Indonesia, Constitutional liberties have been extended through the slow and tortuous process of challenging government restrictions in court.

That was the significance of TRE’s brief relationship with human rights lawyer M. Ravi. Ravi is one of the only lawyers in Singapore who has adopted the mission of widening legal boundaries by fighting political cases – causes that may seem futile, but may occasionally succeed in generating judgments that produce incremental changes at the margins. However, Ravi and TRE parted ways after less than day. TRE’s editors clearly have no desire to be martyred.

Regulatory implications

Looking at the online landscape in this way also shows why the government’s use of defamation law against TRE can backfire. One would assume that it is in the state’s interests for critics to move from the guerrilla mode to the gadfly category (even if they don’t go all the way into the establishment critic box or the silent bystander territory, which is where most Singaporeans reside).

It is also clear, for reasons stated above, that such migrations involve adjustment pains and a certain amount of culture shock for the blogs concerned. Those in favour of TRE’s shift should be encouraging it – or at least not going out of their way to make the transition more painful. At last week’s public forum, TRE’s editor said they would welcome and publish government replies to their articles. As pointed out by The Online Citizen, the government could have chosen to reply to TRE's offending article without the backing of a lawyers’ letter.

The defamation threats, issued within days of TRE’s much publicised change of direction, has basically strengthened the argument of the proponents of guerrilla blogging. Even if TRE stays the course and completes its makeover as a “responsible, pro-Singapore” website, there is little doubt that others will fill the space vacated by Temasek Review – and with more determination and drive, now that the defamation threats have galvanised them.

At present, Sammyboy’s political forum is probably the main beneficiary of these developments. I got this SMS yesterday from an old friend: “Quite a few of my friends are now reading Sammyboy regularly…. I knew of the website but never bothered before. I guess that is how website readership works.”

You can't argue with the numbers. There is obviously an enormous appetite for no-holds-barred, publish-first-think-later commentary – not because people like nonsense, but because they want to decide for themselves what's nonsense and what isn't. Even the more responsible gadfly blogs seem to recognise the value of sites that have fewer compunctions about publishing possibly defamatory rumours: at last week's talk, The Online Citizen's Ravi Philemon said he passed a story to TRE because it was unverifiable and did not meet TOC's stricter criteria; presumably, he was hoping that TRE would publish it. With such demand, I have little doubt that within a few months, a full-blown underground website will emerge to play the role of the old Temasek Review.

I assumed above that the government would prefer blogs to move from guerrilla to gadfly modes. But, this is not necessarily true. Many observers have pointed out that there is a certain futility in guerrilla blogging because it is a fundamentally individual enterprise. Sure, the numbers added up might seem impressive, but in the end isolated individuals never produce political change. One of Temasek Review’s little-noticed features was a paucity of hyperlinks to other sites within Singapore’s broad movement for democratic change – it had a big audience, sure, but few partners.

Individuals have to be organised before they are potent. This is the strength of the gadfly blogs. Their numbers may be smaller, but they are capable of getting things going. When they network with civil society groups and opposition parties, in particular, they are far more effective than the likes of Temasek Review. That being the case, cynics might conclude that the strong action by the government was deliberate – that, for all its protestations that it wants more responsible and law-abiding netizens, it is actually happier with guerrilla blogs than a growing swarm of gadflies.

Further reading:

• My article on the different strategies of socio-political blogs in the 2011 general election, for a forthcoming book on the role of new media in the GE.

• My 2006 book on alternative online media, with case studies of Sintercom and Think Centre.

APOLOGY

1. On or about 16 February 2012, we published on this website, TR Emeritus, an article entitled “PAP-government is full of ironies“ (the “Article”). The Article, and the comments in response to the Article, was available at http://www.tremeritus.com/2012/02/16/pap-government-is-full-­of-ironies/.

2. We recognise that the Article meant or was understood to mean that Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong had secured, or was instrumental in securing, the appointment of his wife, Mdm Ho Ching, as the Chief Executive Officer of Temasek Holdings (Private) Limited for nepotistic motives.

3. We admit and acknowledge that this allegation is false and completely without foundation. We unreservedly apologise to Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong for the distress and embarrassment caused to him by this allegation.

4. We have removed the Article and the comments in response to the Article and undertake not to make any further allegation to the same or similar effect.

Giving the background to the case, the article also quotes an extract from the lawyers' letter of 19 February. It cites a passage from the offending 16 February article, which claimed that Koh Boon Hwee, for example, was more qualified than the PM's wife Ho Ching to head Temasek Holdings. It said that this was just one of "10,001 examples" of cronyism in Singapore. The article, by a Matthew Chua, was taken down the same day as the lawyers' letter was delivered to TRE's Singapore-based editor Richard Wan.

It is not known whether TRE acceded to the lawyers' additional demand that the site reveal to them the identity of Matthew Chua.

In TRE's article today, the site noted the lawyers' statement that Ho Ching had been appointed "on merit and through proper process".

"Additionally, Messer Drew & Napier was kind enough to provide TRE with information pertaining to the appointment of Mdm Ho Ching, which showed that Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong was not involved in the decision making process. As a matter of fact, Mr Lee was against the idea from the onset," said the apology, which was signed by Wan on behalf of the website.

"In light of the information made available to TRE, we would like to offer our sincere apology to Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong."

The article ends with an appeal to readers not to post libellous material, saying that such posts would be deleted. Comments for the article were closed – an unusual move for a site famed for colourful remarks from anonymous readers.

Significance

The apology marks something of a comedown for a site – previously known as Temasek Review – that once took obvious glee in publishing conspiracy theories and creative concoctions against the establishment. For example, in its earlier incarnation, it sparked the flaming of PAP newbie Tin Pei Ling with an article that showed pictures of her posing with a regular-looking guy, suggesting that this was a boyfriend whom she had cruelly dumped in order to pursue a relationship with the senior civil servant whom she eventually married.

Last week, Wan appeared at a forum saying that TRE wanted a new responsible and pro-Singapore image. It was the first time that an editor had come out into the open. He said that this would make it easier for TRE to talk to sources with information that could corroborate the many tip-offs it received. However, this also meant that the authorities now had a flesh-and-blood target to pursue in any legal action, as Wan discovered the hard way on Sunday.

TREmeritus claims a higher viewership rank than the mainstream site, Today Online, which is controlled by Temasek Holdings.

At the talk last week, Wan said that the site would be happy to publish replies when officials felt the site had gotten something wrong. By invoking defamation law instead against the high-profile site, the government has drawn the ire of netizens. The Online Citizen, for example, has urged the government to rethink its use of defamation suits against what it sees as unfounded criticism.

"A better way to respond to defamation in today’s world, is to directly rebut the claims," it said in an editorial. "While this can be difficult if one is seeking to prove a negative, it is still much more effective than lawsuits and legal letters. Tell your own story, openly, frankly and candidly. An authentic and honest response will always ring true, and people will be able to tell your sincerity for what it is."

Groundbreaking?

The PM's action against TRE – and law minister K. Shanmugam's against Yawning Bread – are being widely seen as a turning point in the government's management of alternative online media. Apparently cowed by the tidal wave of online dissent that marked last year's general election, the government has now signalled that it will not hesitate to use old-fashioned weapons against critics that cross Singapore's legal limits, online as well as offline.

However, this is not in fact the first time that defamation is being threatened against online media. Ten years ago, Muslim site Fateha.com and individual poster Robert Ho were investigated for criminal defamation. The editor of Fateha fled the country, while the case against Ho was dropped because he was found to be of unsound mind.

Defamation appears in both civil and criminal law in Singapore. While the use of civil defamation suits in Singapore has been controversial, such laws exist everywhere. In contrast, treating defamation as a criminal matter is increasingly regarded internationally as too extreme a restriction on freedom of expression. Significantly, although book author Alan Shadrake was initially charged with criminal defamation, this was never pursued. Therefore, students of media law might see the latest action against TRE as another indication that criminal defamation has come to be regarded by the government as obsolete and internationally unacceptable, even though it remains in the books.

The move represents a rude welcome to the open ground of Singapore’s mediascape. Until recently, TREmeritus and its predecessor sites operated underground, with anonymous editors presumably based overseas. In recent months, however, one Richard Wan has emerged as the Singapore face of the controversial and hard-hitting site. Last Wednesday, he spoke at a public forum on social media.

One day later, TREmeritus published a commentary by a Matthew Chua, which among other things made claims about Ho Ching’s appointment as head of Temasek Holdings. In a sign of the editors’ lack of experience in such matters, the article ended with an editor’s note saying that the author had nothing to worry about as long as he stayed clear of sedition or racism. Somehow, TREmeritus forgot about defamation, which for some decades has been among the country's most frequently used media laws (another being contempt of court).

It was left to Drew & Napier, acting for PM Lee Hsien Loong, to remind Wan that a string of media had been successfully sued for defamation over similar allegations. Their letter yesterday demanded that the offending article be taken down and that an apology be carried prominently on the website, for a period as long as the article had remained on the site.

Legal action will proceed if the site fails to do so. The editors must inform Lee’s lawyers of their decision no later than 23 February.

Wan could consider himself lucky that the site is being given a chance to play ball before being asked to shell out damages and costs. In some previous cases involving foreign media organisations, they had to write out large cheques despite issuing retractions and apologies. The services of senior counsel Davinder Singh, acting for Lee, hardly come cheap.

The PM and his advisors probably took into account the fact that Wan, a 49-year-old IT consultant, does not have pockets as deep as those of Bloomberg, The Economist, Financial Times, Dow Jones and other media corporations that have contributed heftily to Singaporean charities via damages paid to politicians here. Wan and his fellow editors are likely to take the warning shot seriously enough. In addition, bankrupting an individual Singaporean over defamation is likely to go down badly today in the court of public opinion.

TREmeritus has already removed the offending article from its website. It remains to be seen whether it will eat humble pie and issue the required apology. If it does so, it will probably have to take extra care in removing similar allegations from future articles and comments, since it can no longer claim ignorance after this episode.

Acceding to the lawyers’ demands would be a major climbdown for a site known for its no-holds-barred attacks on government. The site’s overseas-based and anonymous editors are an unknown quantity, so it is a mystery whether they will have enough sympathy for Wan’s plight to engage in a collective swallowing of pride.

This is (at least) the third defamation case involving a prominent socio-political blog within the past year. Also last week, Yawning Bread had to delete comments mentioning law minister K Shanmugam’s personal life. Similar allegations were contained in a comment posted on The Online Citizen around the time of last year’s general election. The Online Citizen’s editors quietly removed the comment after hearing from lawyers.

Collectively, these cases illustrate the dilemma faced by citizen journalists and commentators who want to critique the government more forcefully than the mainstream media does. The internet can be used either as a hiding place or as a connector. Each strategy has its pros and cons.

Those who use the internet to stay clear of the authorities, like the old Temasek Review, tend to find it difficult to cultivate sources and allies – this was a key reason why TREmeritus decided to come out of the shadows, according to Wan. In contrast, the likes of Yawning Bread and The Online Citizen have strong connections with Singapore’s civil society. Operating openly and transparently tends to make sites more credible. However, working in the open also means that they are no longer immune to the same post-publication legal constraints that restrict mainstream journalists.

Faced with this reality, it could be back to the drawing board for the individuals behind TREmeritus. It would not be surprising if some of them – and those associated with its predecessor site, Temasek Review – decide to heed the call of the wild and return to the less regulable regions of cyberspace.

Announcing himself the sole Singapore-based editor of TREmeritus, Richard Wan said that he and his colleagues felt it would be a good idea to “show a face to the public” and project themselves as “responsible” and “pro-Singapore”. "We are not terrorists," he said.

In previous incarnations, the site has been called Wayang Party, Temasek Review and Temasek Review Emeritus. It disappeared for several months soon after last May's elections and resurfaced as TREmeritus (TRE) in December. Since then, the site’s ranking has climbed rapidly and has just hit 102, overtaking the mainstream Today Online, according to Wan.

The IT professional and part-time blogger was speaking at a Social Media Week event at Sinema, together with The Online Citizen’s editor Ravi Philemon.

He said that coming out into the open would make it easier for the site to get information from sources, including to verify the many anonymous tip-offs that the editors regularly receive.

He also said that TRE welcomed engagement with the government. He revealed that minister of state Halimah Yaacob and an aide of minister Tan Chuan-Jin had written to the site to correct information carried there.

While TRE was "99 percent" pro-opposition, this was necessary to balance the pro-PAP stand of mainstream media, he said. But he countered the perception that TRE was especially supportive of the Singapore Democratic Party. He said that the perception was due to the large number of SDP articles carried on the site. This, he said, was because the SDP and the Reform Party were the only two that accepted the site’s open invitation around the time of the last election to sign up for an account that would allow them a more direct method of contributing content.

Furthermore, SDP had very good writers who produced a steady stream of articles. He joked that SDP should “slow down a bit” to avoid giving people the impression that TRE was partisan.

Wan revealed that the site is grappling with the issue of how much to moderate comments. On the one hand, editors wanted comments to reflect ground sentiments. Furthermore, they did not have the resources to moderate all the discussions on the site. On the other hand, they recognised the need to edit racist and vulgar comments. Also, the site wanted to promote intelligent discussion. “After a while, it’s quite tiring to have all these nonsense comments,” said Wan.

He said that TREmeritus would continue to give space to hard-hitting articles, including those that would not pass The Online Citizen’s “more stringent” editing. He and Philemon revealed that on one occasion, the TOC editor had passed TRE an “unverifiable rumour” that TOC could not publish. They stressed that there was no formal coordination between their sites, but that the old enmity that existed between TOC and TRE’s previous incarnations was over.

The question-and-answer session brought out a candid admission that a more responsible TRE is still a work in progress. A member of the audience questioned Wan about a posting today on former Workers’ Party MP Yaw Shin Leong’s troubles. In addition to repeating the widely circulated rumour about an affair with another married WP member, TRE referred to liaisons with five other women.

Poring over an iPad handed to him from the audience, Wan professed surprise and said that the version he had written and posted just before the forum included no such mention of additional dalliances. This must have been added later by one of the overseas editors, he said, adding that he would fix it later. “This is why, every day, I only sleep five or six hours. I don’t know how long I can last,” he said, to laughter.

The government is convinced that making its presence felt in social media will reap dividends. On their own, though, such efforts will probably fail. The element in the communication environment that is critically lacking, without which any additional communicativeness would be futile, is trust. That trust cannot grow if the media are forced to side with public policy against public opinion 100% of the time, if we lack independent institutions to scrutinise the work of the executive, and if the government continues to conflate party interests with national interests.

Many of today’s speakers have addressed the possibility that changes in policy will help to heal the current rift between government and people. Even after better policies are formulated, however, a challenge remains –how to win over a skeptical, even cynical, public.

Given the government’s great anxiety since last year’s election that online anarchy could lead public opinion astray, it is timely to look at this issue here and now. But this is a problem that pre-dates Facebook and Twitter. It goes to the heart of one of democratic theory’s greatest dilemmas. Democracies face the risk that individual choices won’t add up to collective well-being. Individuals can fail to act in their own long-term interests, or fail to consider the interests of their fellow citizens.

As a result, there will always be gaps between public opinion and even the soundest public policy. Democratic systems manage this problem by improving the flow of information to and among citizens, as well as by insulating certain spheres of decision-making from democratic choice, on the grounds that these are better left to experts – the rule of law, for example, requires that the judicial system is shielded from the vagaries of public opinion.

Information vs insulation

The favoured balance between information and insulation differs from society to society. Singapore’s resolution of this dilemma is the result of two apparently contradictory convictions. On the one hand is its belief in being forthright with the people – often in exhaustive, repetitive detail. In contrast to the fantasies that are routinely peddled by leaders in many other countries, the PAP has a tradition of being brutally honest about Singapore’s challenges, limitations and vulnerabilities. Our National Day Rallies, for example, are unusually sombre and didactic events in the world of political speechmaking.

This communicative compulsion is counter-balanced, though, by a deep-seated pessimism about the public’s potential to rise to the challenge of democratic citizenship. In common with theorists of democratic elitism such as Walter Lippmann, the PAP believes that democracy needs to be protected from itself – that beyond a point, public participation is destabilising.

Lippmann wrote that enlightened public opinion was an unworkable fiction and unattainable ideal, like asking a fat man to be a ballet dancer. He favoured government guided by experts. Similarly, the PAP believes it would be naïve and perilous to hold high hopes in ordinary people’s capacity to absorb the knowledge and temperament required of active citizens in a participatory democracy. In some areas, decisions are seen as simply too technical; in others, the gulf between short-term individual interests and long-term societal interests too cavernous; while some issues are viewed as too visceral to expect people to exercise cool rationality.

The PAP’s low expectations of the public are seen in Singapore’s broadcasting policies. When the government progressively loosened the leash around the neck of the national broadcaster in the 1980s, the stations were not asked to emulate the BBC-style independent public service model. Instead, in line with the market fetishism of the times, policy-makers decided that TV was inevitably about show business.

This is significant because international research has shown that the level of basic political knowledge in a society – the kind of awareness that we expect citizens to have – is closely related to the strength of public service broadcasting. Current debates in Singapore are obsessed about the internet, but we have probably not looked hard enough at the three decades of television policy, which may have been the single most powerful cultural factor behind cultivating an entire generation of Singaporeans as consumers of public services instead of citizens with a right and responsibilities to participate in public life.

The Singapore strategy thus far has been to develop a public opinion that can be trusted to follow wise leadership, but not attempt to take the lead.

Communicativeness is not enough

Over the decades, nonetheless, PAP leaders have acknowledged that they must meet the growing demands for information and explanation from a better-educated and more skeptical population. Last year’s GE has pushed this trend further. The government is now convinced that making its presence felt in social media will reap dividends.

On their own, though, such efforts will probably fail to achieve the desired result.

Consider the most controversial issues of GE2011: immigration, social safety nets, public transport, housing prices, ministerial salaries. On all these issues, people had ample opportunity to hear the government’s arguments before and during the GE. Are we really to believe that if only politicians had used Facebook and other social media earlier and more enthusiastically, communication would have improved and the vote would have kinder to the PAP? I am incredulous. Similarly, I find it hard to accept that, if only Singapore’s establishment media had conveyed government positions with even greater fidelity than they did, the gap between government and people would have been narrowed.

Increased communicativeness will be more persuasive only if the context – the communication environment – changes. The element in the communication environment that is critically lacking, without which any additional communicativeness would be futile, is trust.

Barriers to trust

In the past, the PAP counted mainly on its track record and charismatic leadership to engender that trust. This is no longer possible. And there are at least three current barriers to building trust.

First, the primary platform through which government communicates with the public, the mainstream media, suffers from a credibility problem. In most areas of coverage, the media are professional enough to provide a valued and reliable service, including on most routine government news. However, at any one time, there are issues on which media credibility is low. The number of such issues may be small, but they are precisely the ones with the largest potential gap between policy and public opinion.

In such cases, government media policy dictates that the independent professional judgment of editors must be subordinate to elected officials’ judgments. The press is expected to educate the public and rally the nation behind the government, rather than push the government to respond to the people. What this effectively means is that the media are required to manage, muffle and mute public discontent while affirming and amplifying the government view. On all the election hot-button issues, public discontent was never totally covered up by the media, but people never got the sense that the media were on their side. And this severely limits the power of the media to guide the public precisely where that influence is most needed.

Second, the communication environment lacks independent voices in public debates: state and non-state institutions that stand apart from the executive, with the competence and credibility to comment authoritatively on problems and policies. These could include Ombudsmen, Commissions, independent think-tanks and other non-partisan expert institutions. This is where the PAP differs from theorists like Lippmann. Democratic elitism places its faith in a plural and competitive elite. PAP philosophy has not been enamoured of such intra-elite checks and balances because of the fear that these will slow down governance and confuse the public.

These risks are small relative to the benefits, in the form of the increased trust that could accrue to the government when more of its decisions are subject to independent scrutiny by competent institutions. Singaporeans have come to expect such oversight in all areas of life where we ourselves cannot hope to muster the necessary expertise.

Finally, there is the problem of conflict of interest, between national interest and party interest. While there is significant overlap between the interests of the ruling party and the interests of Singapore, these interests are not coterminous and most Singaporeans can see that. The most obvious example is the way electoral boundaries are drawn: the process is, beyond reasonable doubt, managed to benefit the PAP. Similarly, unequal treatment towards opposition constituencies when rolling out government programmes and services simply does not pass the smell test.

The odour of partisanship hangs in the air and sticks to other unpopular policies, even those that an objective analysis might conclude are justified as being in the national interest. Cynicism will continue to corrode trust as long as there are specific areas in which the government has, in the eyes of any reasonable Singaporean, put party before nation.

Accountability and transparency

Building trust in the communication environment is critically important because, like it or not, theories of democratic elitism have a point. Citizens – even highly educated ones with an interest in public affairs – can only take so much information about policies before their eyes glaze over.  Some will demand facts and figures in great detail and if the government is on firm ground, it should have no compunctions about providing the data. For most, however, it will be about taking a leap of faith, and that is where trust gives you wings.

That trust cannot grow if the media are consistently forced to side with policy against public opinion 100% of the time, if we lack independent institutions to scrutinise the work of the executive, and if the government continues to conflate party interests with national interests.

In an earlier era, we had faith in doctors because of the aura that the medical profession projected. Today, if we trust our doctors, it is not because we think they are gods, nor because we have studied medicine ourselves and can check their every move, but because of the assurance that our doctors function within a regulatory system that compels them to act in our interest, that the penalties if they fail to do so are high, and that we can get a second opinion if we want.

Such principles should be applicable to government as well. It is not mere repetition of our leaders’ diagnoses and prescriptions that will persuade the public to swallow bitter medicine, but the assurance that policy makers will open their decisions to independent scrutiny and verification.

Since we no longer expect to led by gods, proof of fallibility is not a liability. On the contrary, timely revelations of government’s mistakes is the proof we need that we are operating in a trustworthy communication environment. Conversely, if our institutions are only capable of telling us that the government is right, it should not be surprising that they are not believed.

Think tanks are supposed to think the unthinkable, and it is in this spirit that I have offered these comments. My prescription amounts to instituting limits on government and party – and the PAP has always operated on the principle of unlimited government in a dominant-party system. These ideas might be thinkable if the ship of state was in the dock, ready for an overhaul. But one of the ironies of Singapore’s success story is that because the ship is still cruising, it is that much harder to repair it. Asking the PAP to countenance a more open and competitive politics may be, to borrow Lippmann’s metaphor, like asking a fat man to be a ballet dancer. Whether it is unthinkable for a fat man to lose his extra pounds without losing himself is a question I will leave you with.

What verdict on Seng?

The most important question is, of course, what to make of Seng Han Thong and his words. His intentions were not 100 per cent clear, so individual citizens will have to make up their own minds. Like others who have grown up as a minority in Singapore, I have developed my own personal antenna for detecting prejudice and racism. It’s been tuned by first-hand experience and the experiences of those close to me, plus lots of listening and reading. Lee Kuan Yew’s statements about race and religion through the decades have a special place in my heart – they never let me forget that ethnic stereotyping runs deep within the establishment. Thus, when I read the headline and report in TOC about what Seng said, my antenna triggered a code-red. I was ready to be angry and to classify this as a case of outright racism. But after watching the video, I was not so sure. Definitely another case of a member of the PAP putting his foot in his mouth. But racism? It now registers an “orange” at worst on my personal meter.

Others will have their own antennae, each tuned differently. The range of views that have been expressed shows not only different interpretations of Seng’s state of mind, but also different degrees of sensitivity towards the offence. Government leaders will have to assess the mood and act accordingly. If they get it wrong, they will pay the price. Looking at what’s at stake, I suspect that the Prime Minister will tick off Seng publicly. Will the PM go further? It is not the PAP’s style to mete out swift punishment in response to public opinion. But there’s supposedly a new normal in town and there is a first time for everything.

TOC's report

A less important topic – but which was the main focus of my postings, since Journalism.SG is devoted to journalism-related issues – is The Online Citizen’s reporting of the video. Its original posting had a headline and two sentences. The headline and one of the two sentences were misleading, in a way that misrepresented what Seng said. TOC’s response to me hasn’t changed my assessment of what they did. The fact that TOC supplied the whole video for viewers to hear the MP in his own words was considerate, but this does not make TOC’s own summary of what Seng said any less incorrect.

Am I thus imposing mainstream media standards on alternative media, as some suggest? In my writing and speaking on alternative media (one of my main areas of study), I’ve consistently argued that they have a different democratic role from the mainstream, and should operate accordingly. They need not be “balanced” or “objective”, and indeed often serve democracy best when they are driven by causes. I've tried to explain to doubters the value of having some journalists who are simultaneously activists, thus challenging the professional norm of detached disinterestedness. When a society includes such morally-engaged journalism as part of its media mix, there’s a higher chance of important issues being surfaced, and of marginalised interests being represented. I’ve regularly cited TOC, together with Yawning Bread, as the leading practitioners of such activist-journalism in Singapore.

However, this freedom from the yoke of “balance” and “objectivity” doesn't have to mean trampling over basic factual accuracy. TOC could have highlighted the Seng fiasco as an important public issue without misreporting what he actually said. In many cases, a certain laxity is understandable, given TOC’s meagre resources (for which I have advised critics that the best solution is either to donate to them or their own preferred citizen journalism venture). But I think the stakes are higher when it comes to reporting offence to racial and religious sensibilities. For alternative media that wish to make a difference in this area, which I hope TOC does, it is wiser to be extra scrupulous in order to maintain one’s credibility.

Letting down the side?

A third concern has been raised by some commentators who seem to believe that I have betrayed “the side” by criticising TOC’s coverage and giving the benefit of the doubt to Seng. This is an interesting argument that reflects the spirit of the times. Singaporeans have different modes of response to PAP domination. The most common coping mechanism is to tune out, allowing oneself to be depoliticised. As for those who remain bothered by the structure of politics here, one common reaction is to close ranks against the ruling party, and to give the PAP a taste of its own medicine. Basically, turn politics into a streetfight – you bully us in the real world, we’ll show you who’s boss in cyberspace. The student of realpolitik in me tells me that this may indeed be the only language that the PAP ultimately respects. So, I can see the logic in the position of those who want to make life as uncomfortable as possible for the PAP.

However, I choose to respond in a different way. Not because I think my way will be more effective in changing PAP politicians’ minds, but because I would not like the person I would become, if I merely mirrored them. I prefer to resist the PAP traits that turned me off in the first place. For example, I know too well the harm caused by the PAP’s intolerance towards dissenting opinions. So I try to cultivate tolerance, starting with myself. I don’t like the PAP’s tendency to distrust Singaporeans, suspecting the worst in them. So I want to be fair to people and not prejudge them. I’ve observed the PAP’s partisan stance, that if you are not for us you are against us. So I try not to think in us-versus-them terms. I've felt what it's like when one is labelled by the PAP, and when spineless acolytes treat one according to that label. So, I try to avoid labelling people when criticising their actions. I know the PAP’s ability to twist opponents’ words to score political points. So I treasure truthfulness in politics, and – since I am not seeking votes or eyeballs – would rather lose a battle of words than push an untruth.

As I’ve said, the main reason why I choose to respond in this manner is personal. I’d like to adopt habits that I respect in other people, not mimic those that I don’t. There are few things more precious to me than the freedom to explore contrarian views, and I don't think the reward for resisting PAP conformity should be anti-PAP conformity. If this lets down “the side”, so be it. Maybe I’m selfish that way. But perhaps there is some wider benefit in this approach to politics. If the opponents of the PAP ever succeed in removing it from power, it would be nice if the underlying political culture changes as well. It shouldn’t be an Animal-Farm-like transition, where we look at the old and then the new, and can’t tell them apart.

Opposition MP Chiam See Tong shot to his feet to object. Choo dismissed Chiam's rebuke, clarifying that he was referring to foreign Indians, not local Indians – digging himself deeper into a hole. Later, presumably after he had received some counselling from his PAP bosses, Choo apologised.

The Straits Times carried two Forum letters, one from a Chinese and the other from an Indian, expressing outrage at Choo's comments and calling for his removal from Parliament. But PM Goh Chok Tong said that Choo had apologised, that he didn't really mean harm, and that the matter should be laid to rest since people made mistakes from time to time.

This resolution left many Singaporeans unsatisfied and worried. But without an outlet for their legitimate grievances, the matter was indeed laid to rest. Alternative online media, if they had existed then, would have kept the issue alive, making it far more difficult for the government to sweep it under the carpet. Singaporeans usually count on the government to police the country's racial and religious harmony, but the Choo incident shows that it can sometimes be too charitable to its own.

I raise this issue to illustrate that there have been, and probably will continue to be, cases where Singapore requires vigorous independent whistle-blowing against racism.

But to do this effectively, the watchdogs must, above all, protect their credibility. And this is the problem I had with The Online Citizen's treatment of the current Seng Han Thong affair. After reading my blog yesterday, some readers wondered if I was saying that TOC should not have highlighted the incident. I am glad TOC did. But, to protect its credibility (and to be fair to Seng), TOC should have stuck to the facts – an MP and union leader making extremely ill-judged remarks, which he attributed to an SMRT rep.

This is what Halimah Yaacob did in her timely response, without being any less hard-hitting.

When we cry “racism” and our facts are not verifiable, it undermines the anti-racism cause. It makes it too easy for unconscious racists and outright bigots to claim that the commentators have some other agenda. In this case, many Singaporeans will come away from TOC's loose reporting concluding that its editors were using the episode to further its anti-PAP agenda. This then becomes an excuse for sweeping the racism issue under the carpet.

Opinion shapers should reserve their racism allegations for clear-cut cases: where the perpetrator has nowhere to hide. The Choo Wee Khiang incident, for example. Any way you look it at it, it was racist.

In contrast, the Seng Han Thong case is murky. The full account (see Yawning Bread for a good summary) shows that he blundered, but does not show conclusively that he was racist. To come to such a conclusion requires us to look into his heart, and we are better off leaving such soul-searching to the individual concerned and his maker.

> FINAL WORDS

TOC might have said something like this:

Barack Obama has told Americans that “our sights were set too high” and that “this country was too divided; too disillusioned to ever come together around a common purpose”.

If you think this pessimistic prognosis from a president famous for giving people hope sounds suspect, you're right. Obama did say the words above, but they are taken slightly out of context. He actually said, “They said our sights were set too high. They said this country was too divided; too disillusioned to ever come together around a common purpose.”

Omitting to mention that the speaker you’re quoting is quoting someone else can be a little misleading. That didn’t stop TOC, whose report on a TV forum is headlined, “MP Seng Han Thong: SMRT’s unpreparedness also due to Malay and Indian staffs English language inefficiency”.

TOC’s reporter goes on to say, “He said that because some staffs are “Malay(s), they are Indians, they cannot converse in English good, well enough”.”

In the 13-odd hours since the article went up, more than 200 readers have posted comments, practically all of them outraged by the MP's remarks as reported by TOC.

But what Seng actually said was, “And I notice that the PR mentioned that some of the staff, because they are Malay they are Indian, they cannot converse in English good, well enough, so that also we can learn from. I think we accept broken English.”

Seen in context, Seng was quoting the comment as part of a larger point he was making, that SMRT should have proper SOPs in place, and that in an emergency the drivers’ standard of English is no excuse for silence.

As an MP (and NTUC leader representing workers), Seng can certainly be faulted for not distancing himself explicitly from the view he was citing.

His slip could have been due to political naivety rather than racism. Surely, he should know better. But so should the editors of what, by default, is Singapore’s leading citizen journalism website. There is enough genuine racism in the country; TOC doesn’t help by crying wolf.

TOC did the right thing by highlighting this gaffe. But it would have lost nothing by reporting it accurately. It could have said something like:

PAP MP Seng Han Thong quoted a view, which he attributed to SMRT's PR officer, that Malay and Indian drivers' poor English was to blame for SMRT's poor response to the emergency. He did not contradict this view.

The facts are bad enough. They didn't need to be misrepresented. … More >

PART 2 >