Daily Lessons from Life 08 June 2013 - Bloggers gather to protest against new online regulations

"Bloggers gather to protest against new online regulations - ST/Reuter 08 June 2013 SINGAPORE - Around 1,500 Singaporeans led by local bloggers attended a rally Saturday to protest new government licensing rules for news websites that they say curtail freedom of expression. The peaceful rally, held at a free-speech park called Speakers' Corner, was organised by a coalition of bloggers called "Free My Internet" to protest the regulations which came into force this month. "The message today is that the government must trust us, and stop treating us like babies," said Choo Zheng Xi, a spokesman for the group and co-founder of popular political news website The Online Citizen. "It is an international embarrassment when governments around the world are working to deregulate the Internet, and Singapore, one of the wealthiest nations per capita, is going in the opposite direction," he told AFP. The group had also organised an "Internet blackout" on Thursday, where over 130 bloggers in the city-state replaced their homepages with black screens featuring the words "#FreeMyInternet"." Looks like the clarification by the Minister of Communication and Information that the MDA's recent regulation is meant to maintain the standard of reporting instead of a mean to muzzle the 'non-conforming' news websites is not good enough for the 'free speech fighters/bloggers'. Lessons for me are: 1. the rules are meant to be a 'safe-guard' device that the government can call upon to stamp out any unprofessional, untruthful and malicious reporting of news about Singapore. Especially those very emotive issues of race, language and religion. While the intention is good, the fact that it is there also threaten people with 'borderline' or 'marginally radical' views that they MAY GET caught up and 'fixed' by the authorities even if their views are valid and based on facts; 2. as we review the historical information and data, it is not difficult to find 'authorities of the day' DID and DO often used a 'broad laws' to tighten the noose around the necks of any 'radicals' or 'reasonable radicals' everytime things get too heated and the authorities may lose control or the authorities got undermined; 3. will Singapore news websites be model of responsible reporting and analysis without the authorities getting paranoid and try to pre-empt any untoward reporting that may stir sentiments and create instability and chaos and destruction of Singapore as we know it? From some of the news pieces I have read, most are trying to be responsible. Some are downright biased against the government while some are simply simple folks venting their angers at things that they see as 'unjust' without any solid empirical evidence or research results to back up. These are the ones that will create real problems for Singapore's unity. Yet, it is too high a price to pay to threaten the 90-95% of the people who will report news responsibly because of the fear the the minority of 10-5% are potential trouble-makers. For me, I will continue to write what I feel is right and just with reasons. If I am not sure, I will write about them with those qualification and invite more contribution to beef up the topics. I will protest if even the authorities use this particular law to muzzle me. If ever...