By now, you would have heard of the POFMA law in Singapore.
Possibly in relation to the publication The Online Citizen Asia (TOC Asia), which has repeatedly kena-ed POFMA correction orders by the relevant authorities.
POFMA stands for the Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act (POFMA).
This time, POFMA has been used again in Singapore and has led to a successful blocking of a website in Singapore.
This is what you need to know about the website Asia Sentinel being blocked in Singapore.
Website Asia Sentinel Issued a POFMA Correction Direction
If you are still not aware of what the POFMA law is, it is time to pull up some newspapers to catch up with the current affairs of our country.
POFMA stands for the Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act (POFMA) and is a law in Singapore to “counter online falsehoods”. A correction direction can be issued if the two-pronged test is met.
First, there must be a false statement of fact made or being communicated in Singapore via the Internet. Second, it must be in the public interest to issue such a direction.
Both these limbs were met in the case of an article published by the Asia Sentinel website and resulted in a POFMA correction direction being issued to them.
Last month, an opinion piece by Andy Wong Min Jun in Nikkei Asia, written by editor John Berthelsen, appeared on the website on 24 May 2023. It was titled “Singapore Kills a Chicken to Scare the Monkeys”.
A swift two days later, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) published a press release listing out several “false statements of fact” in the article and stated that the POFMA Office in Singapore had been “instructed” to issue a correction direction to Asia Sentinel in respect of its article.
According to the press release, there were at least three instances of false facts within the article, and the “facts” were also explained alongside pointing out what the falsehoods were.
One of them was that the “Singapore Government threatened to end Nikkei Inc.’s business operations in Singapore”. The MHA clarified that “at no point did the Singapore Government threaten to end Nikkei Inc.’s operations in Singapore”.
How reassuring.
Another falsehood that the Asia Sentinel article mentioned was about how “M Ravi was suspended from practising law for five years because he had criticised the Government”.
The clarification provided was that the suspension was because “the Court of Three Judges found that his various allegations against the Attorney-General, Deputy Attorney-General and prosecutors, and the Law Society, had recklessly and baselessly undermined the pillars of Singapore’s legal system and would cause grave injury to public confidence in the legal profession and the administration of justice in Singapore”.
Some instances of the offending behaviour by M Ravi raised in the press release included accusing the Prosecution in Singapore of being “overzealous” when prosecuting others, leading to death sentences in certain instances, and saying that the Attorney General Chambers were “[harassing]” him while he was trying to do his job.
There was absolutely no connection between M Ravi’s suspension from the practice of law and his criticism of the government.
The last was “Lee Hsien Yang and Lee Suet Fern were forced to leave Singapore because government action was threatened against them for warring with Lee Hsien Loong”. Mr Lee Hsien Yang is the brother of our incumbent Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, and Lee Suet Fern is the former’s wife.
The “facts”, as stated by the MHA, were that the couple “left Singapore after the Police engaged them for an investigation”. The investigations related to “possible offences of giving false evidence in judicial proceedings” from the pair.
Again, it was made clear that the police investigation was independent of the “warring with Lee Hsien Loong”.
With the correction order issued against them, Asia Sentinel would have to publish the correction notice alongside its original article if it wanted to avoid being blocked in Singapore.
Website Asia Sentinel Now Blocked In Singapore for Not Coming With a POFMA Correction Direction
Alas, Asia Sentinel refused to comply with the correction order properly, and hence action was taken by the internet service providers in Singapore to block the site on our island.
A check at the time of writing this article, a quick check of the article shows that it is no longer accessible.
How did things come to this stage? Did Asia Sentinel not make the corrections required of it?
It seems that the website ended up blocked because the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) had been directed by the Minister for Communications and Information to issue an access blocking order for the website.
This access blocking order requires “internet access service providers to disable access for end-users in Singapore to the online location where the falsehoods were communicated”, as mentioned in a press release by the Ministry for Communications and Information (MCI).
The reason was that the website did not comply with the correction direction it was issued, in the manner that the website was expected to.
What Asia Sentinel had to do to keep its website and article up was to have the facts “juxtaposed against the falsehoods”, which would allow the end-users in Singapore to “read both versions and draw their own conclusions”. The location of the facts was to be “the top of the article and at the top of the main page of the website”.
However, what Asia Sentinel did, in reality, was to add correction notices but not at the appropriate locations.
According to Channel News Asia, which did a check of the website before it was blocked in Singapore, there was a correction notice on the article, but it was placed below an editor’s note.
The editor’s note mentioned that the online publication was “reserving the right to answer their (the Singapore government’s) demand at a future time” and that “we stand by our story”.
Talk about a half-hearted effort.
Although Asia Sentinel is currently blocked in Singapore, all is not lost for the website if it wishes to make a comeback within the Singapore territory.
In the MCI’s press release, there was a line that the Minister of the MCI “will cancel” the access blocking orders if Asia Sentinel subsequently complies with the “full requirements” of the correction direction issued against it.
It seems like the MCI is still trying to “give chance” and allow the site to make a comeback.
For those who are not sure what Asia Sentinel is, here is a quick low down on the website that you can no longer access in Singapore.
After all, as was mentioned in the popular storybook Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, the easiest way to get everyone to know about something is to ban it. In the storybook, the antagonist Professor Umbridge banned The Quibbler’s interview with Harry Potter, which resulted in almost every student in Hogwarts trying to get their hands on a copy of the magazine and read the interview.
Unfortunately, there is none of that magic going on with Asia Sentinel, though we do have some tea.
Asia Sentinel is a California-registered publication whose website mentions that it was “created to provide a platform for news, analysis, and opinion on national and regional issues in Asia”.
The site was originally founded in Hong Kong in 2006 though its parent company ceased operations in Hong Kong in 2017, and the online publication was transferred to a Californian company thereafter.
Could these American roots be the reason why the website is so fearless in not complying with the Singapore government’s directions?
Also, Asia Sentinel was founded by four journalists from the United Kingdom and the United States based in Asia. The quartet are John Berthelsen, Philip Bowring, A. Lin Neumann, and Anthony Spaeth.
John Berthelsen is reportedly the Editor in Chief for Asia Sentinel. If you recall, he is the one who authored the “Singapore Kills a Chicken to Scare the Monkeys” article, which caused the website to be blocked in Singapore.
Neumann and Spaeth have reportedly parted ways with Asia Sentinel since the website’s founding.
So what do you think about this whole saga? Is the POFMA law an overbearing tool to stifle whatever freedom of speech we have in Singapore, or is it a crucial piece of our legal landscape to ensure that citizens are aware of and protected from lies they see on the internet?