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Tag: singapore

  • Ferrari deaths: Fast and furious response overlooks the role of dream merchants

    by

    CHERIAN GEORGE

    May 18th, 2012

    One thing hasn’t changed since a red supercar slammed into a taxi near Bugis Junction last weekend. Ferrari’s showroom on Leng Kee Road is still open for business and its flashy website continues to sell the dream of macho power and unbridled speed.

    Anger at the unnecessary deaths has been directed at the rich young Chinese national at the wheel of the 599 GTO that night. When the video surfaced suggesting that he had ignored a red light, Singaporeans’ outrage was matched only by that of people in China who are sick of the class of individuals in their midst who think they can get away with anything (because they often do).

    Opponents of gun control in the United States have a famous slogan that says, “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people.” It states the obvious, that unless you inhabit the world of Terminator or the Transformers, humans shouldn’t be blaming machines for their problems.

    As obvious, though, is the fact that people can kill people is by failing to control the harm they can inflict with their machines. We already have speed limits, and the government has promised to step up enforcement. But, in this and all other cases of speed-related deaths, we seem to accept without question the right of manufacturers and merchants to sell fast cars that maybe just don’t belong in a crowded city.

    The comparison with guns is instructive. The standard defence of gun rights in the US is that guns aren’t used only to commit violent crimes: they can also be used for hunting and self-defence. But then you don’t need a military assault rifle like an AK-47 for such purposes, so these are more tightly regulated.

    Cars, similarly, have mostly benign uses. When you think about it, though, it is odd that there are no special restrictions on buying the vehicular equivalents of AK-47s: cars expressly engineered for purposes that would be unsafe anywhere or anytime in Singapore. We have no speed-unlimited autobahns nor a cross-country rally course. Yet, luxury sports models like Ferraris and more-affordable racers such as the Subaru WRX ply our roads freely, packed with the kind of horsepower that has no legal purpose.

    True, a Ferrari is a thing of beauty even when it is standing still, so why shouldn’t a car aficionado buy one like it’s a piece of art. However, as last weekend’s crash seemed to demonstrate, a thoroughbred strains to show what it was created for, and the temptation to let it can be irresistible.

    (When I last bought a car, I reluctantly decided against the Suzuki Swift Sport – which, while no Ferrari, had won rave reviews for as a hot hatch. Test-driving it along Jurong Island Highway, I admitted to myself that if I owned it, I’d be itching to loosen the leash on this feisty compact. I didn’t trust myself to resist the urge, so I contented myself with its tamer non-Sport twin. Full disclosure: I still managed to accumulate more than 10 demerit points for moderate speeding.)

    A prohibition on performance cars, especially luxury sports cars, is practically unthinkable. Singapore has positioned itself as a playground of the rich, and any restriction on supercars would be as good for the country’s image as the ban on chewing gum.

    In any case, typecasting certain makes of car would be like assuming that only rottweilers attack. The real problem could be how the private car – any car – has been marketed as an essentially selfish mode of transportation.

    Irresponsible advertising is the norm in the auto business. Performance indicators routinely invite drivers to speed. Blithely ignoring the fact that the maximum speed limit in Singapore is 90km/h, makers of even family sedans promise top speeds that are two-three times as fast, cheered on by car reviewers.

    Even supposedly eco-friendly models help sell the dream. Infiniti’s M35h Hybrid is an exquisitely sculpted car with lustrous wood finishes and leather as soft as silken tofu. But go to its website and you’ll see it advertised thus: “Lean. Mean. Green. The World’s Fastest Accelerating Hybrid. 0-100km/h in 5.5 seconds.” In other words, no other hybrid can bust Singapore’s speed limit as quickly.

    Automotive dreams part ways with urban reality most dramatically in their vision of clear roads and empty pavements. Whether you look at a Toyota Altis brochure or an Audi A7 video, one thing you won’t see is clutter: the clutter of other cars filled with other people; of vulnerable motorcyclists weaving through traffic; of pedestrians whose only protection are the rules of the road.

    Media scholars don’t believe that messages, no matter how persuasive, work like injections of mind-altering drugs. People often overestimate the impact of individual stories or advertisements. However, repetitive exposure to the same picture of the world may indeed have a cumulative effect. Researchers of so-called “cultivation theory” have found, for example, that habitual television viewers, exposed to crime-filled news and entertainment, tend to overestimate how mean and violent their society actually is.

    Is there a similar process at work in the way automobiles are marketed? After all, for decades, the dream merchants have packaged cars of all sizes, shapes and sticker prices in basically the same way – promising freedom from other road users. Drive this and you own the road, all the images say. It is not far-fetched to think that this incessant message has had an impact on drivers’ attitudes.

    On the Ferrari website, one video ends with a cautionary note: “This film shows a fictional situation with professional drivers on closed roads. Ferrari urges you to obey all posted traffic signs and laws.”

    This caveat, probably inserted for liability reasons, is unlikely to make a lasting impression. Instead, the lingering memory of this three-minute video is of breathtaking vistas and a machine of heart-stopping beauty. It glides across alpine snow and golden desert, effortlessly inhaling miles and miles of empty road into its bold red snout. The terrain, time and weather change – but it never needs to cross a junction or stop for a pedestrian.

    The world in that video is somewhat different from the one that was captured by a passing taxi at 4.09am last Saturday.

    We will never know for certain which streetscape filled the mind’s eye of the young Ferrari driver that night. But we can make an educated guess.

  • Lawyers’ last caution: don’t blog for instant gratification

    March 25th, 2011

    With the General Elections looming, a workshop for bloggers warned them to beware the law of defamation. Lawyer Wong Siew Hong advised them to conscientiously check their facts. If caught up in an emotional situation, they should not post what they write in the heat of the moment but let the post sit a day or two, or seek advice before posting the entry.

    The workshop was organised by the Community of Information Technology Experts, a group of IT and legal experts offering online-related legal information to individual Internet users and small businesses. Read the full report and download presentation slides by clicking here.

    If you would like to learn more about the do’s and don’t of blogging, you can watch the videos of a 2009 workshop. The workshop featured seasoned practitioners such as Alex Au of Yawning Bread and Choo Zheng Xi of The Online Citizen, as well as a legal primer by law professor Kevin Tan. Click here for the videos.

  • Online campaigning: more freedom to shoot oneself in the foot

    by

    CHERIAN GEORGE

    March 15th, 2011

    The liberalisation of online campaigning rules raises intriguing questions about the upcoming polls. At one level, the move merely acknowledges the new realities, as Alex Au of Yawning Bread told the Today newspaper. But, so much more space is being opened up for legitimate use that one is bound to ask:

    What’s the catch?

    The obvious catch is that this is a liberalisation of so-called prior restraints (rules that shut you up before you’ve had a chance to say anything) but doesn’t necessarily represent any easing in post-publication punishments (getting you for what you actually say).

    Parties would be unwise to assume that defamation law, in particular, will be any less relevant in Campaign 2011. The government does not accept that the cut and thrust of campaigning is an excuse for politicians to sully opponents’ reputations with allegations that they can’t prove in court.

    So, it’s been the case that general election season would be followed by defamation suit season. Opposition politicians in high spirits on the rally ground would crash down to earth in court. Learning from this, parties were far more careful with their words in the last GE. But now there’s a chance that the multiplication of online platforms and the ease of publication will encourage politicians to cast caution to the wind.

    Most of us have had personal experience of how new media miraculously transports one’s foot into one’s mouth. The question is whether this tendency will translate into more defamation suits in this GE, now that red lights have turned green. Note that the regulations require parties to declare which online media are part of whose campaigns. This will make it easier for lawyers to know exactly whom to address their letters to.

    I’m not suggesting that the move is part of a conspiracy to entrap the opposition. But even if exposure to defamation suits is not the intention, that could be the effect. The PAP won’t subject everyone’s postings to legal scrutiny. But if it decides that a particular opposition politician needs to be utterly demolished, you can bet that no tweet of his would be too tiny, no Facebook update too fleeting, to be given the CSI treatment in order a build the case against the individual.

    Parties will have to think carefully about whether the potential benefits of an aggressive online media strategy outweigh the risks of saying things they shouldn’t say and being sued for it.

    The second catch is a related one: while electronic bandwidth may be virtually unlimited, executive bandwidth is still finite. The internet will take anything, but somebody’s got to decide what to feed it.

    Now that parties are allowed to use the new media more, who will actually produce the content? More importantly, who will check and edit the content before it’s uploaded? This may be a non-issue for an internet forum or portal, but it’s an important consideration for a political party: what’s posted needs to be in line with the party’s election strategy – and shouldn’t score own goals.

    This internal management challenge is probably why some parties – including the People’s Action Party and the Workers’ Party – have been quieter than one might expect online. The technical capabilities and manpower are there, but these big parties apparently haven’t cracked the puzzle of how to marry the spontaneity and informality of cyberspace with the need to stay on message. Both parties have had gaffes related to this problem. The WP had internal disputes soon after the last GE over how much leeway members should have online. The PAP has had its share online missteps.

    Workers’ Party 2006 candidate James Gomez has noted in an academic article that “a culture of caution and the parties’ control over its members’ online communications” are among the reasons why their online outreach has been “less than optimal”. Chia Ti Lik, one of the WP’s most promising young candidates, attributed his resignation to the party leadership’s “overly conservative” approach. He has set up his own party, the Socialist Front.

    Based on its far superior numbers and the lack of any fear factor, you might expect the PAP to have the most substantial online presence. However, the latest article posted on the Young PAP website is almost two weeks old; and only three articles were posted in the month of February. The ruling party appears to be facing a similar bottleneck as WP.

    The challenge will only intensify during the hustings. It is tough enough staying in command of the conventional campaign battlefield. On top of that, to manage round-the-clock online platforms will require party leaders to have either superhuman multitasking skills or the confidence to cede control to activists who can run their online campaigns on their behalf. So far, the PAP and WP seem to be reluctant to embrace the latter strategy, opting instead for a less lively and less risky online strategy.

    The party with the most prolific online machinery is instead the Singapore Democratic Party. Clearly, it has an able team of cyber activists in place, proficient in all the newly permitted technologies – and, apparently, empowered by the party leaders to muck around in the online sandbox. (Gomez, one of the country’s pioneers of cyber activism, joined the SDP after he quit WP.)

    The SDP therefore stands to benefit the most from the latest liberalisation. No doubt, though, the party’s online strategy will come under severe test. Take, for example, something posted prominently on its website yesterday: a letter accusing the Singapore embassy in Japan of failing in its duties because an email addressed to it got an unhelpful auto-reply. But a quick check of the MFA website would have revealed a 24-hour hotline for Singaporeans to reach the embassy. (A relation happened to call me last Friday wondering how to contact the embassy; I was able to check and give her the number within less than a minute.)

    One can understand a stressed-out individual shooting off an angry letter. But a political party or media organisation might need to be more careful about what allegations it chooses to publish if it wants to avoid injuring itself during and after the coming campaign. So there’s the catch: the liberalisation of online campaigning rules gives parties the freedom to shoot themselves in the foot.

  • Tin Pei Ling’s baptism of fire: Should bloggers have lit the match?

    by

    CHERIAN GEORGE

    March 30th, 2011

    There’s an old saying, attributed to Friedrich Nietzsche, that goes something like, “What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger.”

    There’s an older and more famous saying, “Thou shall not kill.”

    These two different takes on adversity are, of course, not really contradictory. The quote from Nietzsche advises us to raise our threshold for pain because, after all, shit happens. “To live is to suffer, to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering,” the 19th century philosopher also said. Or maybe it was Maya Angelou. Or Oprah Winfrey.

    None of these self-help gurus would go on to say that we should help those around us get stronger and find meaning in life by inflicting pain on them. That’s where the universal golden rule comes in, that whatever we wouldn’t want for ourselves – including near-death experiences – we shouldn’t do to others.

    I got thinking about this as I read about the current online storm over would-be PAP candidate Tin Pei Ling. It’s not a life-and-death story worthy of airtime on Oprah’s final season, by a long shot, but it does raise some ethical issues for journalism and election coverage.

    Never mind that Tin (unlike most high-flying PAP candidates) has several years’ grassroots experience; sections of the online community have dismissed the possibility that someone so young – she is in her 20s – could serve in the highest forum in the land. (I recall feeling similarly skeptical when Eunice Olsen was put up as an NMP. She proved me wrong and I have learnt not to prejudge.)

    That is nothing, though, compared with the attack by Temasek Review, the anonymously-run website with lofty ambitions “to foster an informed, educated, thinking and proactive citizenry.”

    The website delved into her personal life – even questioning her motives for marrying her husband – to present her as a materialistic, social climbing monster. Such attacks have also been flying around social media.

    Siew Kum Hong, hardly a PAP apologist, has had the intellectual honesty and moral courage to come out swiftly in his blog against this distasteful turn of events.

    However, some others have argued that election candidates should expect such a baptism of fire. One blogger, while agreeing that the incident was “unfortunate”, said with Nietzsche-like logic, “If Ms. Tin is made of sterner stuff, she’ll live through this. If our future political leaders don’t have the tenacity to look past the Glee-like slushies and take the hit for the citizens of Singapore, then I don’t think they deserve my vote in the first place.”

    I agree that how Tin and her party leaders respond to this episode will say a lot about their preparedness for the new terrain.

    This, however, doesn’t really excuse those who have chosen to corrupt that terrain.

    Some online posters have argued that the PAP is just reaping what it has sown: it has made life ugly for those who dare to enter Opposition politics, deterring many able individuals from joining other parties; now it’s payback time, time for the PAP can get a taste of its own medicine.

    Certainly, the online world should help to level what is undoubtedly a tilted offline playing field. This imperative is what motivates some of Singapore’s best online journalism.

    But, there are surely some limits. Websites that say they want to help raise the level of Singapore’s political discourse shouldn’t go lower than the politicians themselves.

    And the truth is that the political parties have been more civilised than they’ve been given credit for. Think back to the Workers’ Party’s calm under fire when attacked by the PAP over the so-called James Gomez affair. And consider the restraint that the PAP showed over the sensational revelations about one Opposition leader’s penchant for photographing himself in the nude. What they may say in private is another matter, but what’s contributed to the stream of public discourse should meet some basic level of civility.

    Rational politicians know they shouldn’t totally poison the waters in which they swim. Perhaps it’s time for Singapore’s citizen journalists to start making similar calculations.

  • AIMS review of internet rules: less than required, more than expected

    by

    CHERIAN GEORGE

    December 2nd, 2008

    When I joined a group of bloggers lobbying for internet freedom, I abstained from one of my peers’ proposals: that the government end its symbolic ban on 100 pornographic and religious-extremist websites. I had no quarrel with my fellow bloggers’ logic. However, I feared that our proposal to un-ban the 100 sites would be exploited by our ideological opponents. They might paint our group as a decadent pro-pornography lobby, thus reducing whatever little chance that our other important proposals would receive fair hearing. Political prudence demanded that rationality and reason be suppressed, or so I thought.

    You can imagine my pleasant surprise when the government-appointed AIMS panel suggested in its consultation paper, and now recommends in its final report today, that the government do away with the Banned 100. Sure, the proposal is packed with caveats: AIMS wants the ban lifted only after its proposed new Coordinating Agency for the Protection of Minors is satisfied that other measures, such as voluntary filtering by households, are working. Nevertheless, given my own discomfort with the bloggers’ unbanning proposal, I can hardly deny that the AIMS report is bolder on this point than I dared to expect.

    AIMS is chaired by my former big boss at Singapore Press Holdings, Cheong Yip Seng. Although hardly a household name, he holds something of a national record. As editor in chief of SPH’s English and Malay newspapers from 1987 to 2006, he is the only person in Singapore who has headed a major establishment institution over a period that straddled the governments of all three of our prime ministers. Neither craven yes-men nor hot-headed reformers in the Singapore system can boast such a record. Somehow, he kept himself and his newspapers relevant enough to the changing environment. There are many more vocal commentators than Cheong, but few more astute readers of the political landscape and what is possible within it.

    To me, this is a key reason why the AIMS report is, on the whole, an important milestone. In addition to reviewing the need for the Banned 100, Cheong’s panel recommends: doing away with the registration requirement for political and religious websites; eventually repealing the Films Act’s ban on party political films; and liberalizing the use online tools during elections. In the details and justifications, these moves fall short of the proposals of Bloggers 13, as our group of bloggers came to be known. (See, for example, Ng E-Jay’s thorough critique in his SGPolitics blog.) But, they are much, much more than what we would have dared to predict a year ago.

    More significant than the nitty-gritty of the recommendations are some of their underlying principles.

    First, there is a welcome move towards rational, research-based responses, rather than knee-jerk reactions to one lobby group or another. This is most evident in AIMS’ discussion of the Banned 100. AIMS clearly shares the concerns of those who want to protect moral values. However, it counter-intuitively – but correctly, in my view – argues that the Banned 100 gives parents and teachers a false sense of security that government can take care of the problem, and may actually retard the development of media literacy and community responses such as the use of filtering software in homes.

    Second, it makes clear that the old because-we-say-so justification for political censorship is no longer acceptable in Singapore. AIMS does not suggest that the state give up its regulatory role. But, it wants the government to justify any action in a transparent manner. Furthermore, following international best practices, it wants the government to be answerable for its regulatory decisions. If party political films are going to be banned, AIMS wants the Minister to consult an independent advisory panel first, and to explain his decision. In addition, MDA should be more transparent about its actions under the Class Licence Scheme, AIMS says.

    Third, AIMS tackles the fear factor that many Singaporeans complain about. Past official statements on this point have been dismissive, claiming that Singaporeans have no reason to fear – but never mentioning guarantees of civil and political rights that are ultimately the only meaningful antidote to fear. Such non-replies lead one to assume that the government is not unhappy with the self-censorship and apathy that fear engenders. AIMS, in contrast, has taken the fear factor seriously, probably as a result of its intense public consultation. No, AIMS has not demanded a strengthening of Constitutional rights. But, it has asked for reforms to certain over-broad government powers – laws and regulations so vague and sweeping that they could in theory be used against all manner of innocent online speech. For example, AIMS argues that the ban on party political films inhibits legitimate use of the medium to tackle serious political issues. It also wants more legal immunity for online content intermediaries that carry someone else’s defamatory postings.

    It is too early to tell how aggressively or sincerely these recommendations will be pursued. It is possible that they will be implemented in such a watered-down form that we are basically back to square one, which would be quite disastrous for Singapore’s desire to be a Renaissance City, Our Best Home, and all that. However, coming from Cheong Yip Seng – a master of the art of the possible – the AIMS report gives me more reason for optimism than pessimism.

    The AIMS report is about fostering greater maturity and personal responsibility in Singaporeans’ use of the internet, and less arbitrary and unaccountable regulation by government. At the very least, AIMS has done Singapore a favour by setting the public discussion of internet regulation on a sounder foundation than before.

  • PAP dominance is impervious to alternative online content

    by

    JAMES GOMEZ

    September 13th, 2008

    A summary of “Democracy and Elections: The Impact of Online Politics in Singapore”, James Gomez’s PhD thesis (Monash University, Melbourne, 2008).

    Aim of study

    The main goal of this study was to evaluate the impact of alternative online political content on Singaporean multi-party democracy. Ever since the internet became publicly available in Singapore in 1995, different activist groups have sought to use the medium in a bid to overcome the neglect, bias and censorship of the local mainstream media’s coverage of opposition parties. These groups believed that if they used the internet to provide alternative political content, it might mitigate the censorship and bias in local mainstream media coverage of opposition parties especially during elections. This study is the first detailed analysis of the internet’s influence on voting patterns and electoral results in Singapore over a period of 12 years and three general elections (1997,2001, 2006).

    Main findings of study

    1. The internet is a niche platform for distributing alternative political content

    The internet has emerged as a platform for civil society, opposition parties, international organizations and individual activists to produce and distribute alternative political content about the PAP government and politics in Singapore that would otherwise not be available on local mainstream media because of omission, bias or censorship.

    The volume of such information and the innovation surrounding its production and distribution is mirrored by the rise in internet home penetration in Singapore during each election year. In 1997 it was 14%, in 2001 it was 57% and in 2006 it was 71%. The projections for 2011 is 86.66% and 2015 is 91.38%. The rising level of internet penetration projected for the coming years, further establishes that the internet will continue to be a significant medium through which alternative political content will be disseminated during and in-between elections.

    Various statistical studies show that the internet as a source of political information remains low and predominantly confined to the young and educated. Thus far it has not been able to rival the local mainstream media’s domination position in the delivery of content. Hence, it remains a niche media, which is growing and will grow further in the next 10 years, but it will not be large enough to have mass outreach under the present circumstances in Singapore.

    1. Alternative online political content has had no impact on voting patterns and electoral results

    An analysis of elections results over 12 years covering the last three general elections (1997, 2001 and 2006) shows that there has been no change in the nett electoral results for opposition parties. Although the major opposition parties claim that the internet has helped boost membership and supporters and on occasions forced the local media to cover opposition party activities and statements, the findings of the research show that these have not translated in term of gains in parliamentary seats.

    Further, in terms of the number of parliamentary seats contested (both single and group seats) and the number of candidates fielded by opposition parties there is no correlation between these numbers, use of internet by opposition parties and the availability of alternative online political content during and in-between elections. Similarly, there is no correlation between use of the internet by opposition parties and the availability of alternative online content and the percentage of votes cast for opposition parties.

    Voter statistics show that since Singapore’s independence, the number of eligible voters has risen from 756,367 fro the 1968 elections to 2,158,704 in 2006. However, voters that have cast their ballots in contested electoral wards throughout all elections remain roughly around 55.7 percent. If we look specifically at the elections years 1997, 2001, and 2007, voter participation was 40.7%, 33.2% and 56.6% respectively. There is no correlation to the level of voter participation at each election in Singapore and the level of internet home penetration. Rather, the actual number of voters who cast their ballot at each election is directly linked to the total volume of voters registered in the wards that are contested during an election.

    Conclusion

    The evaluation of the reach of alternative online political contact and its impact on election results and voter statistics show that the primary shortcoming of Singapore’s present electoral system is the tendency to yield disproportionate representation in favour of the PAP. Over the last 12 years and through three general elections, when alternative online content was available during and in-between elections, it has had no effect on the PAP’s overall electoral results. While support for the PAP has fluctuated in the last four general elections (1991, 1997, 2001 and 2006) by 14.3 percentage points, the variation in percentage of seats was by 2.5 percentage points.

    The evidence shows that the political structure, and in particular, the electoral system, rather than the availability of alternative online political content, accounts for the electoral outcomes in Singapore.

    The current electoral system in Singapore is impervious to the impact of the internet. Hence, the freedom and ability to distribute alternative political content as a manifestation of voter sentiment will not lead to a change in electoral results. The study points to a need for electoral system reform to more accurately translate voter sentiment into parliamentary seats.

    – James Gomez was a Workers Party candidate in the 2006 General Elections. He founded Think Centre.