Sure, Singapore may be one of the top 20 prosperous countries in the world and all that jazz, but in terms of internet freedom, the city state has dropped slightly in their scores.
Non-governmental organization Freedom House put out their latest report comparing 65 countries on their internet freedom in matters of censorship and privacy. The report starts off pretty grim, stating that internet freedom around the world has declined for the fifth consecutive year — more governments and authorities are now censoring information of public interest.
Of course, Singapore has been highlighted as one of the many states practising such purges. The report states that though the government has responded swiftly to address public grievances since 2011, they’re still unwilling to open up space for dissenting views and are invested in containing public debate.
“Indeed, during preparations for the elections in late 2015, the government showed heightened sensitivity toward online dissent, resulting in a series of unprecedented actions during the coverage period,” says Freedom House.
Acts such as the shutting down of The Real Singapore, the enactment of a new anti-harassment law and Prime Minister Lee’s defamation suit against Roy Ngerng contributed to Singapore’s downward score. Other highlighted cases include Xiaxue’s protection order against SMRT Ltd (Feedback), the whole Amos Yee fracas and the sedition act levelled against racist Filipino nurse Ello Ed Mundsel Bello.
Content manipulation was also brought up with the statement that “news websites run by mainstream media tend not to deviate significantly from the official line on controversial political issues, even in their opinion columns.” They stated the example of The Straits Times and Channel NewsAsia deleting online reports where politicians were deemed to have made backfiring comments.
Another interesting highlight in the report is the fact that Singaporeans seem resigned about the lack of anonymity, and are generally accepting of online surveillance. Even during the time when Edward Snowden leaked information that SingTel facilitated intelligence agencies’ access to traffic, there was no outcry.
Perhaps the most worrying statement made by an analyst is that “Singapore has become a laboratory not only for testing how mass surveillance and big-data analysis might prevent terrorism, but for determining whether technology can be used to engineer a more harmonious society.”
Though it’s looking pretty dark, take note that Singapore has a better internet freedom ranking than the other Southeast Asian likes of Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam.
