I don’t really know what personal note to leave this week, so I’ll just confess that I’ve been binge-reading the Bridgerton novels.
(1)
Gutzy Asia, operated by The Online Citizen’s chief editor Terry Xu, has been designated a declared online location under POFMA. To be made a DOL, a website/social media page has to have had at least three “false statements of fact” communicated in the six months before the government makes this designation.
I realised from this case that I’d misunderstood the criteria before; for the longest time I’d been under the impression that you had to have received at least three POFMA directions before you could be made a DOL. Now I realise that it’s not about the number of times you’ve been POFMAed, but about the number of “false statements of fact”—and one POFMA direction can involve more than one statement.
Gutzy was POFMAed twice in February this year; the first POFMA direction it’d ever received was made in October last year, which is out of the six-month range. But the website (and its Facebook and Twitter pages) still fall within the DOL criteria because the POFMA correction direction they received on 15 February 2024—related to comments Leong Mun Wai made about a couple in West Coast and the financial assistance they’d received—had pointed out four “false statements of fact”. That, plus another correction direction made on 18 February 2024, puts Gutzy over the line at five statements. Its status as a DOL will last for two years, expiring on 11 June 2026. During this time, it’ll be illegal for Terry to “derive financial or other material benefit” from operating Gutzy’s website, Facebook or Twitter. Individuals/companies are also barred from providing financial support to Gutzy as long as they “have reason to believe that by doing so, they will support, help, or promote the communication of falsehoods in Singapore on the DOLs”.
This is Terry’s second DOL rodeo: The Online Citizen was designated in July last year. It's amazing he's kept TOC/Gutzy going all these years—the rest of us who’d been involved with TOC bowed out years ago. TOC might not be perfect but it’s been a valuable space for stories and perspectives that wouldn’t have got much (if any) play in the mainstream media, and its impact is there whether you realise it or not. If not for an independent platform like TOC, which doggedly ran reports and commentaries on migrant workers’ issues at a time when the mainstream media wasn’t keen to give it any attention, migrant workers’ rights would probably still be relegated to the farthest fringes of Singaporean discourse and consciousness today. With TOC and Gutzy DOL-ed, both platforms will have to struggle for resources to continue their work on Singapore, especially as the next election draws nearer.
(2)
The PAP is going to refresh itself. They’re going to engage more widely with Singaporeans, communicate better and be “a party for all Singaporeans”. I gotta admit, I went back and forth about whether this was even noteworthy enough to include in this wrap, because it sounds very much like things we’ve heard before. PM Lawrence Wong also said that he’s setting up two groups within the party to look at the issues of mental health and climate change, and there’ll also be more engagement through government parliamentary committees. So let’s see how that goes.
The South China Morning Post ran a piece about the influencers seen at the refreshed/refreshing PAP event, who then posted wefies of themselves hanging out with PAP politicians. Were they paid? I’d assumed they were, but there’s not a lot of transparency at this point in time, so maybe they just really love PAP?
That’s not the only thing we’re wondering about: speculation about the timing of the election is still rife. What does Wong have to say about this? This was his response to media questions on the subject:
“You know when there is an ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) meeting, there's an APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation) meeting, when there's a G20 meeting. You know when they are held in the schedule and in the calendar this year,” he said.
“So you can already mark out which are the dates when I will be busy, when I will be away and which are the dates when I will be in Singapore. So it's really for people to speculate.”
Sorry, I didn’t realise that Singaporeans were meant to track the PM’s movements in our calendars just to guess at when the election will be. Why should it be “for people to speculate”? What’s stopping Wong from saying more? Is it really fair that only one party has this information, while everyone else is reduced to reading tea leaves?
I’m aware that Singapore isn’t unique in giving the PM the prerogative to call elections, but this situation is compounded by the fact that the PAP also goes with the legal minimum number of campaigning days required, making elections a mad rush to the ballot box. It’s like running a sprint against the guy holding the starter gun.
(3)
The Ipsos LGBT+ Pride Report 2024, conducted across 26 countries, presented some notable results from Singapore. 73% of respondents in Singapore agreed that “[LGBT] people should be protected from discrimination in employment, housing, and access to businesses such as restaurants and stores”. 66% agreed that “With parental consent, transgender teenagers should be allowed to receive gender-affirming care (e.g., counselling and hormone replacement treatment)”—putting us in the top five countries (out of the 26) supporting this statement. 54% of respondents in Singapore believe that same-sex couples should be allowed to marry, or at least obtain some sort of legal recognition, while 57% think same-sex couples should have the same rights to adopt kids as straight couples do. Looks like the conservative, homophobic faction that claims it makes up a “silent majority” is neither silent nor the majority. 🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️🏳️🌈
According to the methodology section of the report, Ipsos surveyed about 500 people in Singapore between the ages of 21–74, and they note that their Singapore sample is made up of respondents who are “more urban, more educated, and/or more affluent than the general population”.
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On the radar
👷♂️ The Straits Times ran a report about migrant workers hanging out or sleeping by the side of the road instead of in their dorms. A worker explained that it was “quieter and cooler” outside than inside their crowded accommodation, yet ST still frames the issue as if the workers are the problem, complete with condescending and racist views about how this behaviour might be “the norm” in the workers’ home countries, because they “come from a different culture where they’re used to squatting on the roadside in rural areas because there are no vehicles”. 🤬 Really, ST?! But why should we be surprised…
🏠 A study by three NTU professors found that while the BTO scheme might encourage Singaporeans to marry earlier, it’s also contributed to a higher tendency to divorce. One possible reason could be that BTOing has nudged people to rush into marriage, creating problems further down the line. Eep. But also… kinda predictable?
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