Censorship: Singapore swing

CNBC, USA. March 25 2000

From When censors get technie...

By Michael Bociurkiw, MSNBC CONTRIBUTOR

IN SINGAPORE, a city state which has developed a worldwide reputation for strict censorship, emerging evidence suggests a thaw in state control of information. Once a taboo subject, discussions over race relations are now being openly held in local newspapers. Recently, the founder of modern Singapore and former Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew went so far as to suggest that a knockoff of London's Speaker's Corner be created on the island.

Throughout Asia, governments are struggling to come to terms with the wild west atmosphere which prevails over the Internet. At one extreme is China - which actively blocks sites and threatens miscreants that post offensive online content with arrest - and at the other, freewheeling Thailand and the Philippines, where no controls are imposed on the Internet.

Even in cases where governments threaten sanctions against purveyors of offensive content, relocating sites on servers offshore can be done easily and cheaply by content providers (several Malaysian sites supporting Anwar Ibrahim are hosted on US servers).

Through trial and error, Singaporean officials have discovered that it is too expensive and difficult to censor Internet content. The four local Internet service providers - which together carry more than 800,000 subscribers - are required to use proxy servers and officials say only about 100 sites, mostly pornographic sites such as www.playboy.com are blocked.

"At the end of the day, blocking these sites really is a symbolic gesture," said Bernard Tan Tiong Gie, chairman of Singapore's National Internet Advisory Committee.

Elsewhere, governments for the most part have admitted defeat when it comes to blocking sites, opting instead for encouraging self-censorship.

"You would need cast of thousands to keep scanning the Net for new sites that appear like mushrooms," said Lim. "Even Mahathir has admitted that those sites are uncontrollable and unmanageable."

Tan said local Internet providers are encouraged to adopt their own code of practice rather than wait for the government to set parameters of allowable content. "We don't want to see the growth of the Net straightjacketed," he said.

Though Gale believes it is too soon for proponents of free speech to be sanguine. "They have been busy putting in place infrastructure that will enable them to exert some control over what they regard as politically undesirable sites if they want to. Ditto for cable television. But there is no sign as yet that they are actually doing it. Unlike the situation in Malaysia, Singaporean citizens have not yet seen the Internet as an important source of alternative news."

Analysts agree that it will take some time for Singapore - which is promoting itself as a media hub and knowledge-based economy - to shake off its image as an authoritarian state where Big Brother keeps a tight grasp on information flows. The negative stereotype stems, in part, from previous attempts to silence critics and slap publications such as the Far Eastern Economic Review and the Asian Wall Street Journal - both owned by Dow Jones - with restrictions.

In an unfortunate incident early last year which perpetuated the perception of Singapore as a Big Brother state, a local newspaper revealed that the island's main Internet provider, SingNet, allowed the Home Affairs Ministry to snoop on the hard drives of more than 200,000 of its subscribers - ostensibly to check for vulnerability to hacker attacks. The ISP later apologized but lingering fears that Internet communications can be monitored remain.

Even though the Singapore government has tried to become less paternalistic, Tan predicted it will be quite some time however before regulations governing printed publications are completely lifted.