TODAY link
Alicia Wong
THEY called the official report “forward looking” but clearly, its recommendations were too cautious and focused on the short-term for one group of bloggers.
Five days after the Advisory Council on the Impact of New Media on Society (Aims) announced its findings came the response of 12 out of the 13 bloggers who in April handed the Government a proposal on Internet freedom.
And the netizens’ response took the form of suggestions of their own — such as an unconditional repeal of the Films Act Section 33 — on how Aims’ proposals should have gone a step further.
With the council having highlighted fundamental shortcomings in current legislation, Mr Choo Zheng Xi, co-editor of The Online Citizen, said that “the logical conclusion following their criticism really should be, ‘let’s go all the way’.”
Yawningbread.org’s Alex Au put it another way: While the 13 bloggers had “asked ourselves what should be the destination and then worked backwards” to propose changes, Aims seemed more focused on plugging “gaps” where technology has “moved far ahead of the existing legislation”.
For instance, the council had suggested narrowing the scope of the Films Act so only “clearly misleading” films are banned, or repealing the law and introducing a “blackout period” where new party political films cannot be created or distributed during elections.
Why not repeal Section 33 without condition? Politically slanted videos, Mr Au said, are “an integral part of the democratic process” and will help citizens strengthen their “political discernment”. And as Aims had noted, a blackout period may be unfair as the incumbent party has prior knowledge of when the election will be, and could release party political films just before.
The bloggers also asked to repeal Section 35 of the Films Act, which empowers the Minister to ban any film at his discretion. They argued for scrapping the list of acceptable practices during elections, and to allow online fundraising.
Settle violations in open court
While agreeing with Aims’ proposal to abandon the symbolic ban on 100 websites — mainly pornographic — bloggers pushed to dismantle the entire Class Licensing Scheme, which treats all websites as automatically licensed and liable to be fined by the authorities for violations of the code of practice.
Saying that this scheme leads to self-censorship online, Mr Au argued: “As the Aims paper says, there is already adequate legislation in place, whether to deal with child pornography or racial and religious hate-mongering.”
Bloggers also wanted Aims to consider the principles they had raised in their April proposal: Scrapping Internet-specific regulation, free flow of information and transparency in regulation. So, instead of having the Media Development Authority or Board of Film Censors regulate films, violations should be settled in open court, for instance.
Mr Au said because they focused on “gaps”, Aims’ recommendations were “under-whelming” and could result in a lack of coherence. He thus urged the council to come up with a vision, then a regulatory regime that lives up to it.
On the state’s desire to engage netizens, Mr Choo said: “You cannot divorce e-engagement from the larger political process.” That is to say, offline policies must change for e-engagement to be effective.
For instance, he noted, on policies such as Electronic Road Pricing and foreign talent, the Government should seriously take into account citizens’ offline feedback first, before thinking of how to “market thee-engagement process”.
Mr Ng E-Jay, editor of Sgpolitics.net, suggested the Government do more to publicise online forums. He only learnt about its feedback arm, Reach, the day before.
Speaking to Today, deputy director of the Institute of Policy Studies Arun Mahizhnan said while the Aims report has “a few points that need to be debated,” it has made a significant leap compared to previous government thinking.
He added: “I think the bloggers are making quite a lot of sense in what they are asking for. It is a bunch of views shared by quite a lot of others, who are not necessarily bloggers.”
Alicia Wong
THEY called the official report “forward looking” but clearly, its recommendations were too cautious and focused on the short-term for one group of bloggers.
Five days after the Advisory Council on the Impact of New Media on Society (Aims) announced its findings came the response of 12 out of the 13 bloggers who in April handed the Government a proposal on Internet freedom.
And the netizens’ response took the form of suggestions of their own — such as an unconditional repeal of the Films Act Section 33 — on how Aims’ proposals should have gone a step further.
With the council having highlighted fundamental shortcomings in current legislation, Mr Choo Zheng Xi, co-editor of The Online Citizen, said that “the logical conclusion following their criticism really should be, ‘let’s go all the way’.”
Yawningbread.org’s Alex Au put it another way: While the 13 bloggers had “asked ourselves what should be the destination and then worked backwards” to propose changes, Aims seemed more focused on plugging “gaps” where technology has “moved far ahead of the existing legislation”.
For instance, the council had suggested narrowing the scope of the Films Act so only “clearly misleading” films are banned, or repealing the law and introducing a “blackout period” where new party political films cannot be created or distributed during elections.
Why not repeal Section 33 without condition? Politically slanted videos, Mr Au said, are “an integral part of the democratic process” and will help citizens strengthen their “political discernment”. And as Aims had noted, a blackout period may be unfair as the incumbent party has prior knowledge of when the election will be, and could release party political films just before.
The bloggers also asked to repeal Section 35 of the Films Act, which empowers the Minister to ban any film at his discretion. They argued for scrapping the list of acceptable practices during elections, and to allow online fundraising.
Settle violations in open court
While agreeing with Aims’ proposal to abandon the symbolic ban on 100 websites — mainly pornographic — bloggers pushed to dismantle the entire Class Licensing Scheme, which treats all websites as automatically licensed and liable to be fined by the authorities for violations of the code of practice.
Saying that this scheme leads to self-censorship online, Mr Au argued: “As the Aims paper says, there is already adequate legislation in place, whether to deal with child pornography or racial and religious hate-mongering.”
Bloggers also wanted Aims to consider the principles they had raised in their April proposal: Scrapping Internet-specific regulation, free flow of information and transparency in regulation. So, instead of having the Media Development Authority or Board of Film Censors regulate films, violations should be settled in open court, for instance.
Mr Au said because they focused on “gaps”, Aims’ recommendations were “under-whelming” and could result in a lack of coherence. He thus urged the council to come up with a vision, then a regulatory regime that lives up to it.
On the state’s desire to engage netizens, Mr Choo said: “You cannot divorce e-engagement from the larger political process.” That is to say, offline policies must change for e-engagement to be effective.
For instance, he noted, on policies such as Electronic Road Pricing and foreign talent, the Government should seriously take into account citizens’ offline feedback first, before thinking of how to “market thee-engagement process”.
Mr Ng E-Jay, editor of Sgpolitics.net, suggested the Government do more to publicise online forums. He only learnt about its feedback arm, Reach, the day before.
Speaking to Today, deputy director of the Institute of Policy Studies Arun Mahizhnan said while the Aims report has “a few points that need to be debated,” it has made a significant leap compared to previous government thinking.
He added: “I think the bloggers are making quite a lot of sense in what they are asking for. It is a bunch of views shared by quite a lot of others, who are not necessarily bloggers.”