The world of autonomous sensory meridian response (ASMR) and the contentious six-hour grilling of historian Thum Ping Tjin by Law Minister K Shanmugam come together in one unlikely, absurd union.
Enjoy the experience of tingles and low-grade euphoria produced by the little breaths, gulps, whispers, lip smacks, and exasperated sighs coming from both parties during their long, drawn-out debate about Singapore’s history at the final public hearing for the Select Committee on deliberate online falsehoods last Thursday.
In case you’re lost about what exactly the whole thing is, let’s go through some context for clarity.
ASMR
A fairly recent phenomenon that currently involves millions of people watching videos of whispering ladies on YouTube, ASMR is the tingling sensation people get through the back of their heads and spines from receiving close personal attention, like getting a haircut or going to a doctor checkup, for example. It’s deeply relaxing to many, resulting in the trend of YouTubers using high-end 3D microphones to gently whisper nothings, tap various things, sip water, crinkle paper and more to produce hypnotic sounds.
Select Committee Hearing for Deliberate Online Falsehoods
A 10-member parliamentary committee was set up in January to tackle online falsehoods (aka fake news), which the government says can threaten national security. They held eight days of public hearings that ended last Thursday, a process that involved dozens of individuals and organizations — including Facebook, Google, and Twitter — giving their views and answering questions from the committee. It will deliberate and work on a report when parliament reconvenes in May, which will possibly be when a legislation is introduced to rein in fake news.
It’s claimed to be a method to protect the safety and integrity of Singaporeans, though critics have argued that the legislation could be used to further stifle free expression and control the media.
K Shanmugam
As the Minister of Home Affairs and Law, K Shanmugam is an obvious inclusion in the committee, though he does not head it (Deputy Speaker Charles Chong does). The formation of the Select Committee itself follows Minister Shanmugam’s parliamentary speech in January that noted how Singapore is “highly susceptible” to online falsehoods due to the country’s high internet penetration rate.
During the Select Committee hearings, Minister Shanmugam proved to be a highly interrogative figure, grilling the likes of Facebook executives and other individuals on the things they presented about fake news.
Thum Ping Tjin
Better known as PJ Thum, the first Singaporean to swim the English Channel is a Research Associate at the Centre for Global History and coordinator of Project Southeast Asia, University of Oxford. He co-founded New Naratif — an online platform for journalism, art, research, and community-building in Southeast Asia — and has his own podcast, The History of Singapore.
The academic is known for his critical look into Singapore’s past, especially of the actions of founding minister Lee Kuan Yew. The biggest, boldest statement he made was in February when he submitted his own views to the Select Committee on Deliberate Online Falsehoods.
“‘Fake news’ is not a problem in Singapore — with one major exception: the People’s Action Party government has, historically, spread ‘fake news’ for narrow party-political gain,” he said.
He then referenced Operation Coldstore, where over 100 people were detained without trial in 1963 for the purpose of protecting Singapore’s internal security by crippling the Communist open front organization.
“… (PAP) politicians have told Singaporeans that people were being detained without trial on national security grounds due to involvement with radical communist conspiracies to subvert the state,” Thum noted in his written submission.
“Declassified documents have proven this to be a lie. Operation Coldstore was conducted for political purposes, and there was no evidence that the detainees of Operation Coldstore were involved in any conspiracy to subvert the government,” he added.
You can read his whole written submission on his Medium page.
Shanmugam vs PJ Thum
For six hours, Minister Shanmugam and Thum clashed swords over the latter’s written submission. Of course, Shanmugam wasn’t too happy with Thum’s accusations of the ruling government and proceeded to criticize the historian’s objectivity and academic skills — of which Thum gamely debated for hours. You can watch the whole thing on YouTube (but why would you?).
At the end of it all, Thum was left disappointed with how the minister “chose to insult (him) and (his) professional competence instead of engaging in an honest debate on equal footing,” and how nearly nothing was discussed about tackling fake news in Singapore.
Fellow New Naratif founder and award-winning cartoonist Sonny Liew expressed the same, drawing his own caricature of Shanmugam.
The minister finally issued his own response yesterday afternoon, clarifying his perspective and reasons why he took Thum to task.
“These are serious allegations made in Parliament about our founding PM. Either they have to be accepted, or shown to be untrue. Keeping quiet about them was not an option.”
But if you just cannot deal with all this political hullaballoo, here’s another ASMR video to calm you down.
