The POFMA office issued a correction direction to yet another alternative site. Wake Up Singapore had to put up a notice saying that one of its posts contained falsehoods. Earlier, it posted that Pritam Singh and Faisal Manap did not lie even though the Committee of privileges said they did.
POFMA was launched in 2019 and claims to protect the public from “online harm”. It was used many times in the past few years. Activists, opposition parties e.g. SDP and alternative sites like The Online Citizen bore the brunt of the law. TOC was even taken offline.
In spite of this, the government thinks POFMA is “the right step” to take. Last month, Senior Minister of State for Communications and Information Janil Puthucheary said it does not stop people from expressing their opinions or having debates. Do you feel the same way? Why then do they keep clamping down on alternative sites?
Singapore is already ranked near the bottom in terms of global press freedom. At this rate, where will we end up? Will we take last place, be the joke of the world and still think we are taking the right step? The day the government eradicates all alternative sites is the day we can forget about having any trust or freedom. We live in a society… or so they say.
usually getting pofma-ed means there are some truths people should not know
how ironic!