Singapore and the New Media

An excerpt from Dr. Vivian Balakrishnan's speech at the Foreign Correspondents Association Lunch:

As far as sex, nudity and alternative lifestyles is concerned, the Singapore government’s approach is to lag behind what the general population is prepared to accept...For example, we only block 100 pornographic internet sites, although there must be hundreds of thousands of such sites. This is what we call “ceremonial censorship”. We are merely drawing a line in cyberspace. But these will move over time, taking into account the evolution of social norms and mores of ordinary Singaporeans.

I think this is the right way to deal with the challenges posed by the Internet in general, 'ceremonial' being the best word to describe the response. Governments all over the world have already recognized one thing: absolutely no regulation is not an option. What they have to recognize is that a strong hand at censorship is also not possible. Drawing a reference line and letting the society and the Internet evolve together is perhaps the best approach.

There's another interesting part in the speech which in my opinion is not very clear:

My final point is that there will always be a need for accurate, rational, balanced and credible sources of information in the midst of the cacophony of the new media. Hence, there will always be a need for journalists and editors to inform, educate and entertain the public. The new media will take its place in the ecosystem, where the written word, the printed book, newspapers, radio, TV, films and theatre continue to co exist in our lifetime. Your jobs are therefore
secure.

Ummm. I'm leaning towards the interpretation that new and traditional media will always require the balanced and credible sources of information he mentions. I've read this a couple of times and in the context of the speech it makes sense. However, if there are governments out there with the assumption that bloggers and amateur journalists don't cut muster in the information analysis world, I'd like them reconsider such ideals. The new media is powerful because it's decentralized. And though a lot of this may seem like noise, there are world changing opinions forming in its midst and the best part is that distribution is neither controlled nor localised. In short: it's got the potential to be more fair, balanced and accurate than traditional media.

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