Courtesy campaign enters cyberspace

SINGAPORE authorities yesterday launched a website to encourage Internet surfers to abandon vulgarity and be more courteous.

The website that "offers dos and don'ts of a friendly, courteous online surfer" is supervised by the Singapore Courtesy Council, which is funded by the Ministry for Information and the Arts.

By mid-afternoon, more than 2000 people had visited the site.

Council chairman Noel Hon said Singaporean Net surfers were not especially rude, but there was room for improvement.

"I've noticed personally, when I go to some sites, that the tone of language should be better," Mr Hon said.

"People are impatient when they get on the Net. We want to make sure that good manners should prevail."

Though various groups internationally have tried to introduce "netiquette", few governments have monitored how their citizens behave online.

Well known for its strict laws on littering, smoking and jaywalking, the prosperous city-state of three million also takes a serious attitude towards the influence of the arts and entertainment.

The drive for cyber courtesy is the latest effort in the 20-year-old National Courtesy Campaign.

A brainchild of former premier Lee Kuan Yew, the campaign has in the past instructed Singaporeans how to be better neighbours, citizens and tourist hosts.

"Lee Kuan Yew noticed that the level of courtesy had begun to deteriorate," said Mr Hon, so in 1979 the campaign was launched.

Singapore has limited access to some Internet sites, typically those containing pornographic material.

However, in practice, preventing entry to many such sites has proved impossible.

In a recent electronic Asia-wide survey that included many Singaporeans, sexual material was found to be the most popular online purchase, according to a Straits Times report last week.

 Published in the South China Morning Post. Mar 31, 1998