04 September 2008

AIMS' proposals progressive but can be improved

A government-commissioned panel issued a consultation paper last week with respect to internet regulation in Singapore. The group of 13 bloggers which had submitted our own proposals to the government in April this year held a press conference giving our response to the consultation paper. Full essay.

1 comment:

Chee Wai Lee said...

Hi,

Nice article. I would like to comment about the half-truths and rumors part of the discussion.

Like it or not, we all deal with half-truths and can get agitated by rumors, either through ignorance or through perceived reinforcing evidence.

The PAP, which prides itself on facts (frankly, imho, I think they have learnt to "spin" the truth the way US politicians do), should learn to be less antagonistic and simply offer evidence and facts to convince people they got their facts wrong (without shaming them, as the PAP is apt to do). In fact, I think everyone should adopt such an approach - if you think someone said something that was factually wrong, just let him/her know nicely.

It is all too simple to blame people for "not checking their facts". That is not to say we can be lazy and not try to check our facts before we post online, but we're humans and the fact that we blog is because it is a medium for typical casual discourse and not a medium for formal publication. If it were the latter, I'd stop blogging ...