Internet having profound effect on Asian societies

The structures that have contained the hierarchical relationships between these different groups of people have traditionally been strong in Asian society. Yeo believes that the ease of broadcasting information on the Internet leads to a democratizing effect on social systems.

"It now becomes much easier to break out of traditional relationships and bypass traditional hierarchies," said Yeo. "The result is that all organizations become more web-like in their relationships."

While this can result in changes that benefit society, Yeo says that it also creates new tensions between groups - those who are IT-enabled and those who are not, the young and the old and different racial and religious groups.

"Differences in the value systems of different racial and religious groups will result in different responses and different speeds of response to the IT challenge," he said. "If we do not handle these new tensions well, we will not be able to hold together."

Singapore's attempt to deal with these challenges is concentrating on education and an official policy of light touch regulation for the IT and Internet industries. The government's main concern is with promoting e-commerce and IT education.

However, Singapore was one of the first countries to attempt to regulate the Internet. The Government was concerned about the way sudden access to publishing and information on such a wide scale could exacerbate tensions between different groups in Singapore.

Yeo admits that regulation of the Internet unilaterally can never be effective. "Increasingly, regulators around the world will have to work together to ensure that the Internet meets certain minimum international standards," he said. "However, we must recognize that, for hate and pornography sites, it is difficult to establish a world-wide consensus on what the minimum standards should be."

So Singapore licenses ISPs that are bound by codes of practice. They are not required to monitor the Internet or its users. But they are required to limit public access to approximately 100 to 200 Web sites which the Singapore Broadcasting Authority (SBA) considers to be undesirable.

"The SBA is only concerned with sites which have mass impact," he said. "Sites which have no mass impact are treated as communication sites and left unregulated."

Regulation further requires ISPs provide filtered Internet services to parents and schools who request it. At the same time, Yeo said the Singapore government recognized no software filter can be 100 percent effective, but viewed these optional services as better than nothing.