Are the general elections drawing closer?
I don't know. You tell me?
After all, the authorities i.e. the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) and the Media Development Authority have called for the socio-political blog, The Online Citizen to be gazetted as a political association. TOC has been gazetted.
On 11 January,
In my opinion, in its 4 years of operation, TOC has been a very transparent outfit. They have a Facebook account where they upload photographs of events which they have organized. In the photographs, members of TOC are tagged. Even if you haven’t met them in the flesh, you would be able to recognize the members if you were to past them on the streets. This is the level of transparency that TOC has proactively offered without being requested to.
At the same time, gazetting means to "officialize" the transparency with the authorities. According to the authorities, this gazetting would "give rise to greater accountability". With reference to The Economist, there is "a chill in the blogosphere". This gazetting is a diplomatic way of saying "be careful of what you write about, we are watching you". Then again, it's been 4 years since TOC's inception. Surely PMO and MDA have placed TOC under scrutiny already. I find it highly unlikely that the conscientious civil servants of Singapore have only recently discovered TOC. After all, "Singapore's civil service is world's best", isn't it?
Why gazette now? What is this "funded by foreign elements or sources” business? The authorities seem to insinuate that foreign elements may have an interest in the politics of this tiny red dot. The closest would be skirmish was a purported attempt at "character assassination". Do the authorities think that it is unlikely for Singaporeans to contribute funds to support sites like TOC?
This could also be a facade to justify the demand for gazetting. Journalists in mainstream media are very much constraint by what they can and cannot write about. Yet, the citizen-journalists in alternative media appear to have a freehand in reporting sensitive issues. Gazetting shows who's boss.
So, are the general elections drawing closer? Various ministers have ante up the buzz.
By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes.
I don't know. You tell me?
After all, the authorities i.e. the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) and the Media Development Authority have called for the socio-political blog, The Online Citizen to be gazetted as a political association. TOC has been gazetted.
On 11 January,
In my opinion, in its 4 years of operation, TOC has been a very transparent outfit. They have a Facebook account where they upload photographs of events which they have organized. In the photographs, members of TOC are tagged. Even if you haven’t met them in the flesh, you would be able to recognize the members if you were to past them on the streets. This is the level of transparency that TOC has proactively offered without being requested to.
At the same time, gazetting means to "officialize" the transparency with the authorities. According to the authorities, this gazetting would "give rise to greater accountability". With reference to The Economist, there is "a chill in the blogosphere". This gazetting is a diplomatic way of saying "be careful of what you write about, we are watching you". Then again, it's been 4 years since TOC's inception. Surely PMO and MDA have placed TOC under scrutiny already. I find it highly unlikely that the conscientious civil servants of Singapore have only recently discovered TOC. After all, "Singapore's civil service is world's best", isn't it?
Why gazette now? What is this "funded by foreign elements or sources” business? The authorities seem to insinuate that foreign elements may have an interest in the politics of this tiny red dot. The closest would be skirmish was a purported attempt at "character assassination". Do the authorities think that it is unlikely for Singaporeans to contribute funds to support sites like TOC?
This could also be a facade to justify the demand for gazetting. Journalists in mainstream media are very much constraint by what they can and cannot write about. Yet, the citizen-journalists in alternative media appear to have a freehand in reporting sensitive issues. Gazetting shows who's boss.
So, are the general elections drawing closer? Various ministers have ante up the buzz.
By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes.
