PAP Started the Internet Brigade in 2007
As the PAP’s new but disjointed strategy started to take shape from 2004, PAP realised the mistake of its follies – you cannot give people the freedom of speech, if you still want to make money from them. You have to silence them, if they start questioning you. No wonder the old PAP wanted to instill fear in the people, to prevent them from speaking up, but it was too late for the new PAP to backtrack then. They wanted to upkeep their appearance as the modern, cool and relevant government.
So, in 2007, they got some of the younger PAP members of parliament to spearhead a team of people who are now known as the Internet Brigade (IB), with the aim to go online to steer the conversation. If people were going to speak up against the PAP, then let’s steer the conversation back to be in favour of the PAP.
Their efforts failed disastrously. PAP saw its lowest votes in the 2011 general election.