Global Action Brief (forward)

[Damien Miller]

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[snip]

> >Singapore Government Curtails Online Freedoms
> >
> >The government of Singapore recently established strict controls on all
> >Internet Service Providers and many World Wide Web pages. ISPs and
> >content providers will be licensed, and required to adhere to a rigid set of
> >content guidelines which apply to political speech, ethnic and religious
> >remarks including satire, and public morals including "contents which
> >propagate permissiveness or promiscuity."

I had the unenviable position of setting up a Cybercafe in Singapore
when these
regulations were first made law. Fortunately we did not have to
implement 
filtering ourselves, we just pointed the browsers at an upstream proxy
which did.
We can't take responsibility for people changing the browser settings
and
downloading questionable material, can we? ;)

Whilst the sentiments of these restrictions are, from our more liberal 
perspective, ridiculous, poorly conceived and even humorous (banning 
online info regarding fortune-telling?). I believe that they will only
quicken the vary factors that the seek to curtail - i.e political
critique,
sexual inquiry and possibly even fortune-telling :)

Judging from the scorn these new regulations received from net.users I
spoke to 
in Singapore, people are willing to go to great lengths to avoid the 
restrictions and 'route-around' any filtering the SBA seeks to impose. 

[snip]

> >Support of individually customizable filtration services, instead of a broad
> >top-down censorship effort, would enable Singapore to participate in a
> >more positive and effective way in the evolution of this new open
> >medium, and would indicate trust in the ability of Singaporeans to choose
> >what is right for Singapore and for themselves.

This is defiantly out-of-step with what I perceive the Singapore Govt's
social
agenda to be. The political psychology there seems to be based very much
on the
foundation of social and moral stability - they do not want anything
that will
'rock the boat'. I heard a (perhaps apocryphal) story of either CBS or
NBC being
temporarily banned in .sg for criticizing a member of the government.

Not to divert us from the issue of online regulation, but going over
there is the 
most compelling argument I have seen for govt of this type. The place
has a 
miniscule crime rate, is remarkably clean and the inhabitants have a
strong
sense of social responsibility. Despite all this I Personally choose .au
:)

Regards,
Damien 

- -- 
| This left space intentionally blank | Damien Miller =
dmiller@vitnet.com.sg |
|  "Show me a sane man and I will cure him for you" - C. G Jung
(1875-1961)   |
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