In your article, you mentioned that; I quote '..protect those citizens whose right and morals might be adversely affected. Taming the Net for our kids might be a valid issue, but not for adults,..'. I am sure that Singapore culture's reputation for being paternalistic is well-known. However good the intentions are, isn't the 'fear' of corruption from the introduction of internet access directly related to the perception that the public do not have the wisdom and the maturity to handle the free flow of information? To me, it seems like a vicious circle; people need to be protected if they are not mature to handle information, and how can they mature if they are being brought up in a paternalistic environment which filters out information for them?
If we are morally strong (I hate to use the word 'moral' as if it implies self-control and virtue, but I think you know what I mean) and have the courage to think honestly then how can we be corrupted?
I think we underestimate the maturity of Singaporeans. We are, as a nation, mature enough to deal with these issues (eg. sex, lies and cyberspace) rationally and sensibly.
Also, people do grow up and learn to think on their own, despite the inhibiting effects of their environment. Sometimes, like Darwinian selection, a hostile environment simply sharpens the tendency to think for oneself and develop individual values and standards.
Terence, in his article, pointed out that the government is just 'being practical' and that 'cost in terms of how society will change is something to be dealt with later'. Do you agree with his impression?
Possibly. Society is already changing as we write these words and ponder the implications of free information in the cyber-age. But I think we exaggerate the cost to society.
The social aspect of the IT2000 plan, apart from painting a naive rosy picture of economic benefits for the individual, is markedly undeveloped as compared to the detailed plan for the more physical and commercial aspects of the vision. This IT2000 plan is fairly old, and only recently have ministers commented publicly that the internet, or rather the s.c.s newsgroup in particular, should be subjected to closer scrutiny for fear of allowing inaccurate of bias views or opinions to go unchallenged.
I agree. I have believed this since 1992, (where I have been in the thick of the IT2000 effort) when I voiced the comment that the IT2000 plan paid too much attention to economic and commercial development for the private sector and industry (where actually we have done very well indeed and don't need too much help) and missed out on the lot of the common man. Apart from a lip-service acknowledgment to 'quality of life' and 'individual potential', the plan essentially neglected the sociopolitical impact of the changes it promoted.
One of the major failings of IT2000 is that the implementation was not well thought out, and derived from a monolithic, centralised mindeset. It did not take into account important external factors such as the explosive growth of the Internet and the increasing technology-awareness of our population.
Yet the basic principles of the IT2000 vision are sound - and if the implementation was wrong, then the right engineering fix is to go back and rethink it. And recent changes in NCB, which used to think it 'owned' IT2000, are beginning to bear this out.
Surely, the government must be aware of what is going on on the internet. What puzzles me is how private satellite receivers are banned in Singapore and yet internet services are provided by Telecoms. Why? Is it purely because of the potential economic benefits that a internet-proficient populance will create, or is it because the government have decided that it is time to foster a more open society allowing a less controlled flow of information?
I believe there are differences in Internet and broadcast, even though the Net can be a broadcast medium, it is a two-way, interactive medium, whereas satellite reception is passive and static.
I think the economic advantages of Internet outweigh the advantages of being able to receive satellite, and so our Government has made the pragmatic decision of choosing one over the other. The amount of useful information beamed out via satellite (and cable for that matter) is very low. Too many programmes of doubtful intellectual (and even entertainment) merit. Anybody who has channel-surfed through a typical day's worth of American cable can attest to that...
Can you elaborate on what kind of 'trauma' that Singapore might face if it doesn't 'develop the skills to interact with the world'?
Hmm, I think we'll lose our collective self-esteem as a nation and affect our standing with respect to other nations if we get too heavy-handed in an attempt to censor cyberspace. We don't want to be labelled as 'pariahs' of the information age, for this goes against our goal to be up there among the developed nations of the 21st century.
Terence brought up the point that gazetting of the Internet under the SBA's (Singapore broadcasting act) purview implies that the government views the internet as a broadcasting medium. Now that is obviously false in the technical sense of the word broadcasting. How do you think the Internet should be compared to: private telephone conversation, TV or printed medium?
I think that we can't compare the Internet to anything at all really. It's a medium unto itself. Which is why regulation without the basic understanding or the reason why we regulate is futile in the face of ever-increasing technology. Laws are by their very nature backward looking. They only deal with problems which have arisen, not will arise. Which is why the best way to safeguard a country's integrity is not through the force of law, but education. If people are educated laws become irrelevant - or marginalised - in the safeguarding of law and order.
In a tightly connected world, what do you think will happen if Singapore decides to 'pull the plug'? Will Singapore then face the same 'image problem' as with the Fay, or Lingle incidents?
I think that pulling the plug on the net is really out of the question. Not only will we need it for pragmatic reasons, but we have already given it so much hype. People have gotten used to it. I'm sure that we'll face more than the 'image problem' which we have had with the Michael Fay case - we'll also have a full-scale domestic protest on our hands. Of course, saying this, the best time to pull the plug would be now because, as Chong Kee has pointed out, not many Singaporeans at all have access to the Net. So they won't know what they're missing.
How do you suggest that we educate the public to handle this kind of free flow of information without throwing them in the 'deep end' to teach them to swim?
Perhaps a few policies and mindsets need to be altered wrt to information flow. Enfranchising the citizenry through the mass media, making them take part in decision-making more, will give them stake here. Teaching them ideals like equality, democracy, trust, respect - i subscribe to these because they are qualities which breed tolerance through understanding and lay the foundations of stability for peace. Empowering them to make decisions with these ideals in mind. There are many things which can be done, but the point is that attitudes to people, to information must change first. I think that if the policy on the Internet stays, the real effects of this freedom of information are not going to be obvious till 5 years from now when we bring up a generation of undergraduates who are used to questioning and receiving answers - or have the means to set up pressure to demand these answers. Who is to tell what will happen then?
Are you aware of any legal actions taken against any individual or organization because of activities on the net? If so, can you furnish us with details?
If you're referring to Singapore, no, not that I am aware. NCB would know more about this, as they have been helping the CID set up their Computer Crimes unit as an adjunct of the Commercial Crimes Division. In the United States, legal actions have been taken in the criminal arena against crackers for quite some time. Some states, like Florida, have enacted their own anti-cracking laws. The highest profile operations in recent years include Operation Sundevil by the Justice Department in 1990 - for more details, check out Bruce Sterling's "The Hacker Crackdown" or the EFF server. Insofar as civil actions are concerned, the cases have primarily dealt with defamatory statements on networks. For example, Cubby, Inc. sued Compuserve in 1991 over statements made on a conference which it claimed had defamed it and damaged its business. Similarly, the Australian case of Rindos v Hardwick in 1994 dealt with the publishing of defamatory statements on sci.anthropology and the ANTHRO-L mailing list. My feeling is that it is only a matter of time before someone tries to bring someone else to account on statements made across Internet, and it is more likely to be a civil suit involving defamation than an actual case of prosecuting a cracking offence.
In your last paragraph, you mentioned 'Like....radio, and television, and satellite broadcasting. We either take it with both hands and ride with it, or get left behind.'. It is well known that Singapore has a tough policy on satellite reception in Singapore. Have we been 'left behind' on this count?
As Kian Jin points out, the amount of useful information broadcast over satellite is minimal. And although the local stance is tough, Singapore has not abandoned it entirely. The Disney Channel set up its Asia-Pacific satellite transmitter here recently, for example. What the government has done, by demanding satellite dishes to be licensed, and placing such license fees prohibitively high, is to price it out of the reach of the man in the street. Secondly, satellite broadcasts are more easily regulated than Internet, since the provision of satellite technology is a political process conducted at the state level, and the range and reception of satellite transmissions are also controlled along geopolitical lines. Internet has no similar regulatory body. It utilizes technology that is already present, and within anybody's reach.
Singapore has also a fairly comprehensive policy against the proliferation of printed, video, and audio materials which are deemed pornographic, perverted or subversive. With the advent of the internet, anyone can download vast amount of materials which may fall into these categories. Do you think that there is a case to keep to the status quo with respect to censorship in the traditional media?
In other words, does censorship in other media still make sense in the wake of the Internet? Well, my initial statements in saying that we have to take Internet as an all or nothing proposition may have been a bit extreme, and Chong Kee has reminded me of that in his opening statement. There *are* ways to stop people from getting some forms of information. NNTP can be removed, servers can be blocked, and so on. Of course, this is no guarantee. An individual who has some basic knowledge of how systems work could conceivably get around these limitations. But that can be said for all other media. You *can* get pornographic material. It is simply not easy because mainstream sources have been blocked. Your ordinary user may not have the requisite knowledge to get around these limitations. So yes, there is no reason to radically alter government policy simply because Internet is available. I remember a statement made by the government to the effect that while complete censorship isn't possible on the Internet and the government is aware of that, it certainly can be made more difficult.
However, that having been said, the presence of Internet will definitely place a lot more responsibility on the private individual to monitor their children's use of the Internet. At the same time, this may lead eventually lead to a shifting of emphasis from formal to informal (social) controls in terms of material being viewed. The government stance on information has been liberalising slowly. The Internet may help accelerate this process.
Are you in favour of a legislation to prosecute individuals who knowingly request for, and receive 'prohibited' (as defined conventionally) materials on top of prosecuting those who provide them? Why?
Not particularly, no. For purely practical reasons, it is far better, and more efficient, to prosecute the suppliers of prohibited material rather than the receipients. There is also the matter of obtaining evidence - how do you prove that he knowingly requested for and received such material? How do you monitor? This is a matter of making policy be realistic - private individuals enjoying such material in private is less "dangerous" than people distributing such material. You may not be able to stop people from viewing, but you can, again, make it difficult by cutting off supply lines.
ChongKee mentioned the possibility of conducting politics over the internet. Do you think that this is the natural course to take? What implications do you forsee if politics is indeed conducted over the Internet?
Any form of media can be used to conduct politics. Telephone, radio, television, satellite, print, anything. Al Gore and Bill Clinton have email addresses. Ted Kennedy has his own homepage to receive feedback from his constituents. I see no real reason why some politician will not eventually get it into his head to conduct politics on the Internet.
As to consequences, that becomes slightly more problematic. In the UK, there are media regulations on what can and cannot be discussed on the air in terms of political content. Politicians are not supposed to make political speeches except on clearly labelled political broadcasts, for example. The Internet is harder to regulate, but politicians are such high profile people if such a prohibition is set up, it would be easier to enforce. If politics is conducted on the Internet in Singapore to the extent that it becomes not (as it is currently used) a means of obtaining feedback but as a platform from which to carry out a political agenda, there will have to be certain rules of conduct established. This would be no different from what has already been done in other media.
You painted a picture of politicians utilizing the net to conduct activities usually done either in person or conducted in the conventional medium. Do you think that this is the right way to conduct politics? What do you think of Ross Perot's vision of a democracy where decisions are taken by the electorate by referendums through the electronic medium by? Are there any dangers in this situation?
If you think of politics as citizens' participation in national affairs, and the aim of campaigning etc. is to reach as many voters as possible, then surely Internet is just another tool to facilitate this process? What you described as Perot's vision is, however, a completely different ball game. It is no longer democracy in the modern sense of the word where decisions are made by elected representatives, but Athenian Democracy where decisions are made by all citizens. Such a set up might still retain some halo of democratic 'purity,' but in reality will usually lead to the tyranny of the majority and the suppression of minority views. Democracy is a tricky work, depending on your emphasis, your assessment of how 'democratic' a set of rules is will vary. For example, if your emphasis is on scope, you might want things like foreign & fiscal policies to be put to popular vote. If your emphasis is on minority representation, you might deem first-past-the-post elections undemocratic and advocate Proportional Representation. Although Internet has made Athenian Democracy possible by rendering referendum almost costless, we must remember that even in Ancient Athens, only the male elites were entitled to vote. I might be proved wrong, but I doubt it would be politically feasible to use education level as a determinant of voting right. It would probably not be desirable too as it would mean the effective silencing of less educated citizens. On the other hand, even with lots of pictures and explanation, could we reasonably expect everyone to vote knowledgeably on fiscal and monetary policies? A multi-tier system of voting eligibility to solve this problem? Apart from its complexity, we do not know how such a system will behave, it probably will not produce stable results since opinion polls are know to have uncovered massive overnight swings of sentiments. Merits and behavious of electoral systems is a very complex issue, and we are already digressing too much from discussing Internet, so I'll stop here.
At present, the technology is in its infancy. The start up cost of linking up to the net is quite considerable; enough to deter a section of the lower income population from ever participating in the Internet community. Do you think that the IT2000 plan will bring about a new social division of 'haves' and 'have nots' in which the distinction will become more pronounced as more services and activities are conducted over the Internet?
I'm afraid I do not know enough about the implementation of IT200 to answer that, except to note that cost has been falling steadily. Let me comment instead on your second point about social division. As long as you have human society, you'll have to accept social division. Pick almost any thing and you can classify people into the 'haves' and 'have nots': from cars, private properties to pet dogs, squash racquets to even parents, charisma and a hole in your left sock. The trouble starts only when that thing is seen as a 'right' (in the American parlance) or as pertaining to 'equal opportunity' (in Singapore parlance). Will the Internet be indispensable for all Singaporeans? This is more crystal ball gazing than I'm capable of. As long as the Internet only parallels reality (i.e. without e-mail, you can still send a letter at the post office), I suppose it could only be extremely useful but not strictly speaking indispensable. Let me stick my neck out even further and suggest that post offices will only disappear if there is no longer a need for them. So, provided that Internet only parallels reality, social division based on its possession would probably not be an issue. All bets will be off, of course, if someone invents a way to use Internet that revolutionize the way we live and work.
If a bill is passed in Parliament to take actions against persons who post articles openly critical of the government on the Internet, what do you see as the possible effects it will have on its in Singapore? Some individuals from the government have likened the Internet to be a 'street corner' or 'kopi tiam' discussion where anyone can come round and post his/her views. Wouldn't such a bill be equivalent to one to take actions against anyone in Singapore speaking out against the government at any occasion? That is a frightening scenario. What have I gone wrong in my conclusion? Surely there is a case to prosecute those who post baseless accusations or allegations, but what about those who question government policies? Do we expect them to have to join a political party/organization in order to participate in discussions on the net?
Personally, I do not think this is a realistic scenario. Our government has been slowly opening up over the last few years and I do not see any compelling reasons to make them change their mind. We mustn't overstretch the analogy of 'kopi tiam'. As for prosecuting those who slander the government, a case could be made for it, but I would be more hesitant because I see the courts as the last rather than the first resort. Let's say someone says in a newsgroup that a certain minister is corrupt. The government itself, or through a representative, could challenge the accuser. If the accuser cannot substantiate what he said, the minister's name is cleared. This is what you will achieve in the courts anyway. No one in their right mind will make such accusations lightly. If someone insists on repeating the slander despite being proven otherwise, then you can punish him by prosecuting him in court and exacting a large sum of damage. For the general letting off steam type of comments such as 'PAP sucks', they are really hardly worth bothering.
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Last Updated 21/05/95 by Thong Wei