Tag Archives: censorship

Dr Chee wrote a reply and sent to ST Forum, hoping that Straits Times will publish his letter in full. Unfortunately, Straits Times wanted to cut off a whole chunk of words from Dr Chee’s letter. Dr Chee refused and so, Straits Times did not publish his letter.

The Media Development Authority (MDA) has asked the company that is managing socio-political website The Online Citizen to register under a class licensing Act. In a press statement on Tuesday, the MDA said it has "notified The Opinion Collaborative Ltd (TOC Ltd), the corporate entity behind The Online Citizen (TOC), to register under the Broadcasting (Class Licence) Notification. The website itself had been gazetted as a political association in 2011, requiring all its donations to be declared. This also means it can only receive funding from Singaporeans.

CHINA will force real-name registrations on users of instant messaging tools, and require public accounts wishing to publish or reprint political news to seek prior approval, the state media said yesterday. The latest restrictions will likely affect hugely popular mobile messaging apps like WeChat, which has almost 400 million users.

I made the decision last year after reading Alfian's criticism of the pinkwashing at Pinkdot, after hearing from various friends of the Pinkdot organisers' heavyhanded censorship of community booths and disrespect of the LGBTQI community's diversity and needs. My activist friends reported the organisers lecturing that this event is not for them, not for the benefit of the LGBTQI community, but for the benefit of appearing safe and unthreatening to mainstream Singapore and their straight allies. And so: a complete gag on safe sex. Straight people will freak out if you give out condoms and safe sex brochures and talk about safe sex!

There can be no Internet freedom without order, China’s top Communist Party newspaper said on Monday after several U.S. television shows were pulled from Chinese video sites, the latest signs of Beijing’s tightening grip on online content. Four U.S. television shows, The Big Bang Theory, The Practice, The Good Wife and NCIS, were removed from video websites at the weekend, the official Xinhua news agency said. The series are all popular and it was not clear why these particular programmes had been singled out. Searches on Youku Tudou, Sohu and Tencent, which provide the shows, produced messages that the content was temporarily unavailable. None provided any immediate comment.

Printers of the Malaysian edition, KHL Printing Co, had reportedly blacked out the faces of each animal in a frontpage story of Wednesday’s issue. “For the New York Times, if there’s pictures of nudity, smoking, weapons like guns, or pigs, we cover them up. It’s not allowed in a Muslim country,” said G. Omprakash, a representative from the printing company. While he was unsure if there was a government directive against such images, such censorship is apparently a standard practice passed down from “seniors” in the Shah Alam-based company.

Upon receiving instructions by the administrators, unquestioning members spring into action to counter unfavourable chatter forming against PAP members or its linked entities. They operate in large numbers with the primary objective of drowning out negative comments and derailing the discussions on the internet. In addition, they also monitor Facebook activities of opposition parties, and call for reinforcements to help counter statements that are critical of the ruling party. On mundane days, typical actions including like-ing the FB pages of the PAP MPs to boast the popularity of MPs. Some of their communications and actions are captured below: