 "Singapore government defends new Internet laws amidst growing unrest")
Facing growing unrest from foreign investors over the new licensing laws for news websites, Singapore’s government, on Monday, defended the revisions while addressing concerns over the possible impact on business and Internet freedoms.
US Internet giants Google, Yahoo and eBay were earlier seen issuing an open letter to the government through the Asia Internet Coalition, which stated that the new rules would harm Singapore’s business-friendly reputation while creating uncertainty for Web entrepreneurs. Apart from the companies, press-freedom advocates have also expressed their outrage for the new rules and a protest was staged last month to challenge what was perceived as an attempt to clamp down Internet-based news media.
Addressing this issue, Yaacob Ibrahim, Minister of Communications and Information, told the parliament that the new licensing regime “is not a departure from the light-touch regulatory approach that the government has adopted for the Internet.”
Rationalising the new laws, Ibrahim said, “There’s no cause for concern that the individual licensing of news sites will stifle Internet freedom, neither is there cause to worry that this will hamper the development of the Internet ecosystem in Singapore, or create uncertainty for related businesses.” The minister said that the new rules were installed to ensure that news be reported with more responsibility.
Singapore government is now defending the new Media laws (Image credit: Reuters)
According to the Wall Street Journal, the US government has also been looking closely at what it described as Singapore’s imposition of “press restrictions to the online world". At a Monday briefing, a spokeswoman said the State Department is “deeply concerned” by the rules that were put in place last month while asking the city-state to uphold the freedom of speech.
Singapore media regulators first began imposing the new licensing rules from June 1 on 10 news sites, including those run by Yahoo’s Singapore unit as well as two domestic media companies. The new rules required the sites to apply for individual licenses, provide a performance bond of S$50,000 (Rs 23,86,964) and accede to government orders to remove any objectionable content within 24 hours.
The new rules will apply to sites that report on Singapore at least once a week on average over a two-month period and receive at least 50,000 unique visitors a month from the city-state. The first sites to be affected include Yahoo’s Singapore news site as well as seven sites operated by Singapore Press Holdings, which is the city-state’s largest publisher. The other sites on the list include two sites controlled by state-owned broadcaster MediaCorp. Other websites, which operate both locally and overseas, may also find these rules applying to them.
Last month, Yahoo’s Singapore arm, which serves a million unique Web users a day in Singapore, separately said that the new rules were “redundant” and unsettling for the domestic media industry.
Addressing the open letter, Ibrahim said that he was “puzzled” by the Asia Internet Coalition’s stance. While talking about the new licensing regime the Information Minister said that it “has nothing to do with doing business in Singapore. It is about holding certain websites to a higher level of responsibility.”
While defending the new rules, the minister said that the Media Development Authority, which is Singapore’s media regulator, will be more “flexible” in implementing the new rules to avoid creating unnecessary commercial pressures on licensees.
Some of the changes that the minister spoke of included imposing a lower bond quantum on licensees that can’t afford the high amount needed. Another rule that could be relaxed is the 24-hour compliance requirement for content-removal orders under extenuating circumstances. Clarifying the new rules, Ibrahim said that the government would not ask websites run by foreign news organisations such as BBC and The New York Times for licenses, as they don’t specifically target a Singaporean audience. The minister also stated that Singapore regulators have never ordered the removal of Internet content deemed critical of the government or state policies.
The government first introduced Internet regulations back in 1996. Since then, the government has issued 24 orders for the removal of objectionable content, which include 21 instances of sexually explicit material, two cases involving online gambling, as well as a video which was deemed inflammatory on racial and religious grounds.
An important point to note here is that these orders were made under existing protocols for sites in Singapore. The existing laws automatically grant websites a “class license” that binds them to rules banning material deemed objectionable on grounds of morality, security, public interest and social harmony in the multi-ethnic island nation.
This point was picked up by lawmakers from both the ruling People’s Action Party as well as the opposition Workers’ Party, which asked the minister why new rules were needed if existing Internet regulations already deter irresponsible reporting.
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