In particular, officials appear to be trying to forestall any emergence of professionally-run, independent online news organizations with substantial reach, as has happened across the border in Malaysia. During the coverage period, three digital news startups were required to provide extensive registration information and forego foreign funding. One that refused was then banned from engaging in any online activity. Separately, the government introduced a new regulatory framework for larger online news media, strengthening official powers to control content through takedown requests and levying a compliance-related bond. Though several sites could have met the framework’s criteria, it was selectively applied to just ten commercial platforms with the capacity to conduct independent news reporting; of those, just one appeared to fall outside the remit of existing media regulation. None of these platforms, whether startups or established outlets, hosted particularly combative or contested content, suggesting that this was part of a longer-term, preemptive strategy to suppress systematized independent reporting online. Overall, the main limitation on content results not from blocking, filtering, or takedown requests, but self-censorship by the main news sites and blogs. Self-censorship is prompted partly by fear of the strict application of defamation, contempt of court, and other laws (see Violations of User Rights). Executives of larger media houses may also dread losing the PAP’s patronage. Compared with authoritarian regimes that are more fractured and offer alternative sources of elite support, power and influence in Singapore are unusually centralized within the PAP’s top echelons. As a result, news websites run by major media houses tend not to deviate significantly from the official line on controversial political issues. Universities and think tanks are not known to offer radically divergent views either.
Posted on: Sat, 06 Dec 2014 02:08:28 +0000
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