All those cases were against the people who actually said something (supposedly) defamatory. The precedent here is that merely sharing a link to something somebody else wrote now also qualifies as defamation.
It is actually similar to the test for defamation in US law. Public figures just have a much harder time prevailing as plaintiffs in the US due to the precedent of NYT v. Sullivan. Even if you rereport a defamatory statement you can also be liable.
Singapore has an opposite standard for public figures. In the US you can defame or libel public figures and our precedent considers first amendment concerns to be exculpatory in most circumstances. E.g. I can say "Cillary Hinton killed Beffery Jepstein" without being held liable for defamation, although if I made the same type of accusation against a nonpublic figure like my neighbor that caused actual damages, I could be lose my shirt in any state court for defamation. I could also be held liable for defamation if I was merely restating what I had heard elsewhere or read in a libelous article. That is not a valid defense. There have indeed been defamation cases involving Facebook posts that resulted in substantial judgments or costly settlements here in the US (example: https://www.abajournal.com/news/article/facebook_comment_lea...)
As some others have said, just because another country has different standards around a body of law doesn't necessarily mean that their interpretation is right and ours is wrong. The American interpretation of the first amendment and its applicability to defamatory statements against public figures could change, and it wasn't the same as it is now in previous eras of American history. NYT v. Sullivan is not the Constitution or one of the tablets handed down to Moses: it's a lot easier to reverse.
How does defamation law intersect with section 230?
> No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.
This applies to users who quote or forward a message as well as to sites that host a message. But there are some exceptions to section 230, and law is complex, so I may have missed something about defamation.
“ under a plain reading of the statute it is clear that retweeting falls within the confines of Section 230’s immunity [...] Unsurprisingly, Reid’s attorneys signaled that she intended to argue just that in response to the complaint filed against her. Faced with the prospect of this hurdle, the plaintiff promptly dropped Reid’s retweet cause of action from the suit, although she has maintained her claims against Reid for allegedly false statements made after the retweet.“
> It does not apply to users who make such actions. Only to the service provider.
It absolutely does reply to users foe actions which merely effect the visibility of materials others have posted, like simple retweets, provided they have an arms-length relationship with the original poster (if they actively solicited the submission and then retweeted it, that’s potentiallt different.)
So if defamation law says an individual cannot disseminate information written by others, but section 230 says an individual can do so without repercussions, which of those takes precedence?
Aside: retweeting doesn't obviously expose a URL, but in the similar scenario of dissemination by actual URL, I wonder if slugs therein would change things because then the downstream participant is actually themselves writing defamatory words (but I guess since the upstream participant specified those words first, even that is merely quoting existing info, not writing new info).
> So if defamation law says an individual cannot disseminate information written by others
It doesn’t.
It says that in certain cases, they would by so doing be liable as a publisher of thr defamatory content.
> but section 230 says an individual can do so without repercussions
Section 230, with some exceptions, says that neither the service provider nor other users will be consider publishers of material submitted by a user. So, any liability they would have as the publisher of that material does bot exist, so long as the other conditions set for Section 230 safe harbor apply.
The same way DMCA 512 intersects with contributory copyright infringement. The only difference is that CDA 230 has no notice-and-takedown regime for defamatory content.
Certainly an interesting (for lack of a better word) slippery slope.
Could upvoting this hackernews article count as defamation? It's not the same as sharing it, but it would still make the original article more visible to more people.
Good question. And going back to the original example, would liking a Facebook post with the information also count, as that would signal to FB's algorithms that it should be promoted more?
I presume even reading a Facebook post (or clicking on a Google search results link) provides a signal about popularity. Probably a little too far down the slippery slope for the law, though.
You could argue that by sharing a link you are quoting verboten. After all that is likely the intention of sharing the link unless other wise qualified.
If the individual in question shared the link with a disparaging comment then they would have most likely been fine.
I'm not necessarily defending the use of defamation law here just commenting on how it might analysed in law. IANAL :)
It's well known that Singapore is not a free country. Many people idolise it for being supposedly a success story in economic development. Which is fine in itself I guess, but what many people do is then jump to pretend that Singapore is not an authoritarian country, in an attempt to justify other areas in which it had success.
Singapore always scores poorly on press freedom indexes [1] probably because the Government owns a huge chunk of the media via MediaCorp and uses defamation laws to silence political opponents [2].
I'm always surprised that Singapore ranks so highly in economic freedoms as the government is linked to around 20% of the companies listed on the Singapore Stock Exchange and has a massive hand in public housing [3].
I think it says a lot about how simplistic those sorts of "ease of doing business" / "economic freedom" surveys are.
Singapore is great by most metrics that are simple to measure, like how many pages a tax return is, how fast the broadband is, how many channels of hi-def television there, how reliable the trains are, how long you have to wait in line to get a driver's license, etc, etc.
However, those are actually very superficial, and more subjective, and ultimately more consequential metrics aren't captured. Things like whether the broadband is censored or not, whether there's anything interesting on TV, whether the locale around any two train stations are any different, how much a car costs once you have your license and whether there's anywhere interesting to drive...
Singapore is a poster child for what happens when you just manage and optimize all the easily measured metrics.
There is no pity at all - of all countries I know and had business in, Singapore deserve to have ranking #1 in ECONOMIC freedom. Way above any other country.
Other freedoms are totally different matter, and we may find Singapore way below most of countries here
What do you define as "actual" freedom? In Singapore I don't have to worry about getting shot, or anti-Asian physical attacks, and the excellent, clean, safe public transit system means I can get around just fine even when I am not medically fit to drive, and don't have to worry about insane healthcare expenses. Freedom is relative.
And these are mutually exclusive why? Most developed countries e.g. Europe, Japan, Aus/NZ, are very safe and I don't get thrown in jail for dissent or caned for chewing gum or executed for smoking a joint.
Here's a helpful explainer of the law being applied here (as well as data on additional cases where it was used since its introduction in 2019): https://pofmaed.com/explainer-what-is-pofma/
I seem to be on the other side of the consensus here on HN.
If you accept defamation laws (and defamation laws are a thing in Singapore and many other places), then the question is whether you actively participated in the creation or dissemination of slander (again, assuming that creation and dissemination are both illegal).
We in the tech world have optimized various mechanisms to enable sharing information- we have gotten so good at it that our users don’t pause for a moment and think about their responsibility they bear when hitting that share button.
It’s like picking up cleanly packaged meat from the grocery store or filling up on gas from a gas station- the experience is so clean and polished that one doesn’t really think about where the meat/crude oil is coming from and what it means to be paying for it.
I think the courts held that one is responsible for what they share. It isn’t “merely” sharing a news article on facebook - the person had to decide to hit that share button.
Now, there are a lot of things wrong with this. But most of the problems come from having some defamation law to begin with.
I take issue with the law itself, but this interpretation of it doesn’t bother me.
IANAL, and I don’t know if dissemination is somehow different from creation in defamation cases. I expect it has to be - otherwise “Mr. X is a pedophile” can be illegal while “I heard that Mr. X is a pedophile” isn’t. Which seems dumb if one’s intent was to make defamation illegal in all ways.
> then the question is whether you actively participated in
There is another important question: intention. In the US, "for a public official (or other legitimate public figure) to win a libel case in the United States, the statement must have been published knowing it to be false or with reckless disregard to its truth" [1].
It seems to me that most of the problems come not from having the defamation law to begin with like you said, but from the law applying even to defendants who believed the information they were creating or disseminating was true.
I very much believe that intent matters, and should matter, but the problem with intent in a legal setting is that often it is incredibly difficult to prove intent, and the defendant just has to say "I never intended it to mean that; I was thinking $INNOCENT_THING when I said it" to inject some doubt into the proceedings, often enough doubt to avoid a guilty verdict.
I agree that there needs to be a balance. I'd argue that US defamation law is close to the "right" balance, by making a stronger case needed to prosecute defamation against public figures (like public officials or celebrities), and by focusing not exactly on intention but on whether the defendant within reason could have believed the statement was true.
Singapore is a different culture, and they see public figures differently.
Being disrespectful to your boss, and those higher up the authority chain, is a strong cultural taboo. Authority is respected. It's complicated for us Westerners to understand, and totally goes against how we view the world and our place in it. But that's the culture, and changing it because it doesn't agree with ours would be wrong.
So yes, the US defamation law is right for the US. It's probably not right for Singapore. I'm not sure Singapore's actual law is "right" - this article and the popular support for the defendant in this case shows it may not be. But that doesn't mean they would be better off with the US version.
Let's say the NYT publishes an article about the president. You, believing it to be an accurate representation of facts, share the article. It turns out the NYT writer made it all up. Do you think it's reasonable to punish you for libel?
What about newspaper stands that sold the libelous paper?
I think it's clear this ruling is totally incompatible with a free press and free speech. Only the original source should be held accountable.
I think the test here could/should be of visible and definite authorship. A NYT article, with a byline, shared removes the onus from the disseminator. If the article is wrong, the liability goes back to the original author. A share with unknown provenance puts the responsibility on the person sharing. Libel stops with the sharer in this case!
This may have a chilling effect on communication wherein sharing is more akin to bringing up a thing you want to talk about rather than making a definitive statement. A big problem is that a baseless lawsuit can still cost the user tens of thousands of dollars.
Also if the purpose is to reduce the amount of blatant lies and misinformation I don't know that it would be very helpful as it seems like most of it actually has a byline just not one that any reasonable person would trust.
Forcing users to check for a byline and nothing else to avoid accidentally opting in to financial destruction wouldn't help much. Your idea needs expanding.
> I think the test here could/should be of visible and definite authorship
I see an additional test for the sharer as to whether they had reasonable expectation of knowing the information they were sharing was false and misleading.
Sharing from “Totally True News” (where sensational articles have no author and no source are quoted); that “you as a public figure are drinking the blood of babies.”
Comes to mind as probably valid ground to seek redress for defamation.
What if totally true news has a listed author even if he is a lunatic and lists sources even if they are awful. We ought to teach kids in school how to identify this but if we define in law which are good sources or which can get you sued into poverty we are in putting into effect a prior restraint on speech.
Disseminating defamatory material is legal __provided you did your due diligence__. Whether taking the journalist at face value is due diligence, I don't know.
This is a common dilemma in social media. Does "liking" a post mean you agree with it? Does "angry face" mean you disagree? What about "laughing face", "shocked face"? It is dangerous to read legal responsibilities into an action which is probably meaningless.
Is disseminating a link to defamatory material illegal? Should it be? In this case, it was a link, not the content itself, which was shared. If Facebook added an excerpt, I would think liability falls to Facebook.
Also note that I'm more interested in what is moral/just, not legal according to any specific system, since this is a discussion about laws which vary across nations. The American/English system isn't necessarily ideal.
Sounds great in theory. In practice I, like most people, only do the due diligence on stories I disagree with. When a story confirms my biases, I accept it at face value. I don't even realise I'm doing it. It's not a conscious decision.
I recently found a subreddit where people had shared an article from a newspaper with a decent reputation. The story strongly implied that the government had engaged in crony capitalism. 96% upvoted, all the comments castigating the government. Normally I would have agreed and moved on. I certainly wouldn't have spent time fact checking an article that I agreed with. Except it was about something I knew a bit about (solar energy). The article was wrong and misleading. Perhaps even "fake", considering how many people had been misled.
When I tried to correct the record on the same subreddit, there was huge pushback. People nitpicked my fact check to death. It got a small fraction of the upvotes and comments the original fake/misleading article did.
None of those people did the due diligence, like you want them to. All of them took a journalist working for a reputable newspaper at face value. Should they all go to jail now for upvoting and commenting?
Defamation is not a criminal offense. Nobody goes to jail for defamation. You can be sued for damages from defamation in civil court.
I never said what I wanted, or gave any opinion. I'm just adding a bit of color to the conversation by stating relevant facts. The accusatory tone is not very conducive to interesting discussion.
More to your question, I highly doubt upvoting a reddit post counts as dissemination / publishing. The comments people wrote could themselves be defamatory, but I also doubt a reddit comment will cause demonstrable damages to a person's reputation. There has to be damages for you be sued, otherwise there is no reason for the suit.
I don't know the article you are referring to, but something to the general effect of "The government did a bad thing" is not defamation either. Again, you have to cause demonstrable damages to an individual for them to win a suit against you. If the article was something closer to "The government did a bad thing, This is the person responsible, This is where he lives, Let's get him fired", or if the reddit comments were of that flavor (as they often are), the case for defamation is a little stronger.
Just for completeness, many former British colonies inherited criminal defamation from the general body of English common law. Apparently UK only repealed it in 2010.
Of course, Singapore is famous for actually using it, but still, in many parts of the world defamation can technically be a criminal offence even if in practice the legal risk is low..
> What about newspaper stands that sold the libelous paper?
What about the case that you shared it after it was shown that the story was made up, and it can be proved that you knew this at the time?
What about the case that we find out the reason that the article was made up was that you fed the writer false information, in order to shield yourself from prosecution?
Uneven enforcement is a problem in and of itself. Doing nothing to a thousand people and then slamming a fine like this on one guy is not conducive to rule of law.
But this is Singapore, it's not a very free country.
> Uneven enforcement is a problem in and of itself. Doing nothing to a thousand people and then slamming a fine like this on one guy is not conducive to rule of law.
The defendant, Roy Ngerng [1], is often portrayed in Singapore media as a troublemaker, and has been the subject of multiple defamation suits.
Politicians in Singapore's incumbent party seem to mainly use defamation against politicians, activists, and the media, and very rarely against a random person on the street.
It seems to boil down to the government needing to protect their integrity, as former Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong said in a 1999 interview [2]:
> There are many critics of the PAP in Singapore. They are not all hauled up before the judiciary. Political opponents, so long as they keep within the law, don't need safeguards. They do not have to appear before the judiciary. But if they've defamed us, we have to sue them -- because if we don't, our own integrity will be suspect. We have an understanding that if a minister is defamed and he does not sue, he must leave cabinet. By defamation, I mean if somebody says the minister is on the take or is less than honest. If he does not rebut it, if he does not dare go before the court to be interrogated by the counsel for the other side, there must be some truth in it. If there is no evidence, well, why are you not suing?
And there is the problem. While you propose an interesting academic question, the chain of events starts from a law that I see as harmful. Therefore, there's no value in justifying the legitimacy of the next steps.
The suggestion that defamation should be generally legal is somewhat outside the norm, as far as I know.
If I start a campaign, billboards and all, saying that my doctor is a pedophile once convicted of rape in Australia who has been also implicated in organ trafficking (when she's actually very wonderful) then I should be held liable for the damage to her career and reputation, at a minimum.
I'm not a lawyer, but I think the USA has a reasonable position on how much defamation should be tolerated.
Slander and libel are illegal, but the threshold at which the law takes effect depends on how public the target is.
As such care has to be taken when making statements about a private citizen, e.g. "Mr. X is [something horrible]", but one can say almost anything about a public figure like the president, or senators, without fear of legal trouble.
The legal libel standard for public figures from NY Times v. Sullivan and Curtis Publishing Co. v. Butts is that you need to be able to prove "actual malice" (rather than something merely being untrue) which is of course hard to do because it speaks to intent.
Careful with that though, as we saw with the covington kids, if powerful interests want to slander AND libel you, they will drag you kicking and screaming into the spotlight. Now you are a public figure, now you are fair-game, but they've always seen you as fair-game, they just needed to manufacture justification.
That's absurd, though. It's pretty easy to determine when someone passes the threshold from private/unknown citizen to public figure. If the alleged slander/libel happened before that point, it shouldn't matter that they've since gained notoriety.
Based on your example, I guess that's not how it always works, but there's no reason in principle why the laws and legal standard around it could not be fixed to be more fair.
"Public figure" does not mean "elected official". It means literally anyone who publishes (makes something public) themselves. So anyone with a social media following is a public figure. If you have to worry about being defamed, then you are already outside the protection of defamation law.
There's also the concept of a "limited-purpose public figure", which means that just commenting on something can make you a public figure in certain contexts. For example, if you were to merely say that I was a pedophile, you probably have defamed a private individual. However, if you replied to this post with something like, "You probably just think defamation law is good because you're a pedophile that doesn't want to get caught"; defamation law could take your side. After all, I joined this particular controversy by commenting on it, that makes me a limited-purpose public figure. So even if you're not a public figure, it's very easy to accidentally become one.
I suppose it would not be such a bad thing to educate people to do their own research sometimes and not believe everything they are being fed. Were it the majority of cases, we would probably not be talking about this to begin with. What makes things worse is quantity of people making the same claim, or claims coming from authority figures.
What you're proposing here doesn't scale. What if everyone decided that there's no value in justifying the legitimacy of the next steps following the existence of laws they each saw has harmful? If everyone did that, there would be no laws left to enforce...
Republishing libellous content can indeed be defamation. I don't know the details for his case and IANA but retweeting/sharing can land you in hot waters not only in Singapore but also in the UK for instance:
"In 2013, a defendant named Alan Davies was ordered to pay £15,000 in settlement after retweeting a Sally Bercow tweet that suggested Lord McAlpine, a former leading Conservative politician, had committed child abuse." [1]
"Defamation is apparent when one person publishes a statement or material about another person that is untrue and is damaging to the claimant’s reputation or likely to cause such harm – this is the case even if the defendant has simply republished a statement made by another." [1]
A retweet is visible to the public. A magazine shared to a single person doesn't have the same effect. The practical difference between publishing and private sharing with friends was about the greater reach of publishing. Social media means everyone has the same reach as a publisher, with some of the same responsibilities.
There seems to be an argument to be made that sharing an article resembles saying "I heard that X" where X is the contents of the article. It seems a bit dumb to have the heard that distinction and not apply it to sharing on social media. I don't think it's reasonable to assume that by sharing an article a person is asserting they consider everything in it to be unquestionably true. It generally means they found something they heard/saw interesting.
It's also worth mentioning that the shared article claimed that Malaysia, under former Prime Minister Najib Razak, had signed unfair deals with Singapore in return for help to launder stolen funds, so this is a big allegation.
However, a guy has to wonder what the odds are of the state levying such a fine in defence of an ordinary citizen.
> IANAL, and I don’t know if dissemination is somehow different from creation in defamation cases. I expect it has to be - otherwise “Mr. X is a pedophile” can be illegal while “I heard that Mr. X is a pedophile” isn’t. Which seems dumb if one’s intent was to make defamation illegal in all ways.
It is different. Opinion is also exempted. I don’t think that’s dumb at all. Otherwise it would be impossible to report on a controversy without risking a lawsuit.
I've visited Singapore and it's a beautiful country but it's commonly understood they achieved their status through an authoritarian government.
I'm struggling with my opinion about this case - imagine a society where people are actually held accountable for spreading bullshit disinformation, wouldn't that be a net good?
On the other hand, powerful politicians suppressing dissent with crippling lawsuits tramples all over free speech and open debate. I'm from Canada so we don't have a hardline free speech movement like the USA but it is vital to democracy to be able to have discussions freely.
What I do think is that the penalty in this case was much too large for simply sharing a link, citizens must be able to criticize their public figures without fearing a penalty that is some multiple of their annual salary, and the average person can't be expected to have a fact checking department on staff to verify every link they share with their social media friends.
Doctors told people smoking is healthy in the past. Harvard apologized for pushing sugar as healthy 60 years ago. Flat Earth was the accepted truth at some time, and Round Earthers considered nut jobs. Not being able to questioning anything "science has settled", would basically kill advancement.
> all this “believe experts” dogma is legit indistinguishable from the rhetoric of evangelical christians. ffs please just go to church and leave science to the skeptical assholes.
This implies the experts are giving their opinions in the same style as church leaders, which is blatantly false, and probably a little dangerous to equate.
"Believe the people who will explain themselves to a degree you'll understand, and who change their opinion when new information is presented." is a more complete way of expressing that thought. There are other ways of expressing that thought, I wouldn't be surprised if `pg has an essay on this.
Skeptics are right to be skeptical, but what "skeptic" usually means in modern culture is, "intransigent". The line between healthy skepticism and dogmatic rejection of basic reasoning has blurred substantially.
You still shouldn’t trust anyone expert or not. If they write a paper read it and incorporate its findings into your understanding of the world but don’t take what they say as gospel. This is what most people get wrong about experts.
But didn't the expert write the paper? how do I trust what's in that paper anyway? Shouldn't I replicate the results myself first before I make any changes to my beliefs? But then again, how do I trust my own results, someone could have tainted them, or the experiment itself could include bias or just be poorly constructed to eliminate confounding variables, which would of course result in an outcome that isn't useful!
A better option would be to eschew certainty. Stop trying to "know" things, and get comfortable making decisions based on an incomplete understanding of information.
It's really this obsession with certainty that keeps getting people into trouble.
My own world view is based on uncertainty and knowing that there is a vast, almost infinite, quantity of unknown stuff out there. I think the two concepts are not equivalent.
I think you're correct to say that you shouldn't take what experts say as gospel. But every individual's time and resources are limited; if I had to verify the result of everything I read from first principles, I would be doing literally nothing else with my life (no time to eat or sleep, either).
People need to do their best to judge how trustworthy a source is, and make their own decisions, but remain open to conflicting information if their trustworthy sources are later found to be wrong. And people also need to accept that any decision they make based on that information isn't 100% certain.
I don't have time to read every paper published, which is why we have people we call experts. The hope is that by having published papers public, other experts will read it and kick up a stink if there are egregious errors. Up until that point, to get on with life it is necessary to make a decision if the subject is relevant to our choices.
It is exactly like OSS. Not every user can audit the code, nor should we expect them to. But it's there and we hope that someone is.
Nutritional science is particularly bad. Trans fats were considered the healthy alternative to saturated fats, salt has been made a boogeyman on shaky gorunds, eggs have flipped between being considered healthy and unhealthy a few times, and the food pyramid/low fat movement pushed carb heavy diets that contributed to the obesity epidemic.
I would surmise the traditional belief of western philosophy thusly:
1) I do not have perfect knowledge.
2) Good, or at least better, ideas will implicitly produce better results over long periods.
3) It is immoral to control the lives of others.
4) Therefore, people can argue for ideas they find compelling, and people are free to choose what they think is best.
5) Furthermore, people must bear the consequences of their decisions.
A further part of this system was that it was necessary for society to be structured such that individual choices do not have an outsized impact on others. This required that the apparatus of the state have specific constraints. It was quite a remarkable belief system, and much has been written about it over centuries.
Okay, but we still have systems in place that routinely make decisions based on determinations about factual statements. There are obvious ones, like determining whether someone murdered someone else, or determining how much money someone made for the purposes of taxation. We don’t just throw up our hands and say “sure, maybe there is objective reality out there, but even if there is, who could possibly decide what is real?”
> A further part of this system was that it was necessary for society to be structured such that individual choices do not have an outsized impact on others
Yes, it would be great to not have people spread bullshit information. But how would you accomplish it? By having "official fact-checkers" censoring information, but that's an appallingly terrible idea, many times worse than the current state of affairs. So the imperfect situation we have now is preferable to another many times worse.
>>imagine a society where people are actually held accountable for spreading bullshit disinformation, wouldn't that be a net good?
That largely depends on who is choosing what is "disinformation", normally if government (or corporations) is involved "disinformation" normally becomes "things that we do not like" which would not be a net good
You're comparing apples and oranges. What works on the micro political level (Singapore) doesn't necessarily work at the macro political level (Canada). This is also why I can vote for Republicans in the state government and Democrats in the federal government and still sleep soundly every night.
That being said the court case in question is draconian.
FWIW the population of Canada is only 6x Singapore, so definitely bigger but not irreconcilably larger.
I think one of the bigger things that makes Singapore so much easier to govern with consensus is the density. It's 5.7 million people packed onto a 30x20km island. There isn't much in the way of urban/rural divide or of different federal-level divisions having competing resource concerns, etc.
> imagine a society where people are actually held accountable for spreading bullshit disinformation, wouldn't that be a net good?
Sure, but who cares? Just doing what is a 'net good' isn't a good enough yard stick for whether you should actually do it.
Imagine a society where the weak or infirm are culled at [or before] birth. Wouldn't that be a net good? (Answer: we already went there. Hitler thought the American idea of Eugenics was such a great idea that he made it a major priority of his government)
> we don't have a hardline free speech movement like the USA
A lot of places have movements where people want more free speech. Just like us. The difference is, we were lucky enough to actually succeed. And it really was luck.
There is this myth that we have always just naturally revered free speech. The reality is that our country has only recently evolved its position. Up until the early 20th century, Americans were regularly convicted for defamation of the government (or speech that wasn't in the government's interests), particularly through and after WWI. Then one Supreme Court justice changed his opinion on free speech, and set the whole country on a course to re-interpret the limits of the First Amendment. We can only legally say "Fuck the USA" during wartime, or even salute a Communist flag (at any time), because that one Justice changed his mind.
If one person changing their mind moved us forward, it could also go the other way. And the same could be true for your country.
> the average person can't be expected to have a fact checking department on staff to verify every link they share with their social media friends.
I think perhaps this is a misrepresentation of the requirement (that exists even in places like Singapore) that one be skeptical by default of any claim made by the media.
"Cui bono?"
Penalties for what the court system deems misinformation absolutely do not solve the problem: indeed they make it worse.
>"I'm from Canada so we don't have a hardline free speech movement like the USA"
I'm in Canada as well an while I do not like many things in the US when comparing to Canada I am absolutely on their side when it comes to things like freedom of speech and things like Bill of Rights.
Formally due to notwithstanding clause I do not think we have any rights at all as the government basically can override our rights any time it feels like. Sure it does not do it every other Monday but still it's been used something like 15 times and recently our provincial wizards like Legault and Ford just showed what does this Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms mean for them - apparently zilch.
I'm also Canadian but to be fair American Freedom of Speech and the Bill of Rights is also violated whenever the government wants to. People have been put to death or jailed for being certain protests or screening anti-war movies. Not recently at least overtly, but nothing changed so this is still possible.
There are several countries that make it a crime to disparage the rulers, even if you do it outside that country and even if what you post is true.
On top of Singapore this includes Qatar, Thailand and... China [1].
One effect of the Hong Kong "security" law China passed is that if you "undermine" the regime outside China and transit through Hong Kong airport, you can technically be arrested and tried under that law.
> Lee's programs in Singapore had a profound effect on the Communist leadership in China, who made a major effort, especially under Deng Xiaoping, to emulate his policies of economic growth, entrepreneurship, and subtle suppression of dissent. Over 22,000 Chinese officials were sent to Singapore to study its methods.[90]
Singapore is a puzzle, a challenge to typical western democratic beliefs that certain things need to go hand-in-hand, or that restricting some rights are intolerable. It makes you question whether you're completely right about certain things.
They restrict freedom of speech in certain areas so that people don't get riled up by issues that only "cause trouble". But that means it's harder to question and expose some perhaps injustices. But they also mitigate that by having strong internal checks and government incentives to root out such problems.
They believe in equal opportunities, yet have some significant racially based laws and restrictions. For example, you are not allowed to say that any particular race is "better" than another. And certain things are allocated (by government) by race. But this restriction on speech / allocation helps keep the peace and prevent racial riots and animosity.
They have draconian drug policies. But they don't have major drug problems or homeless on the streets.
It's a small city, so some things are very peculiar to its situation and probably don't work elsewhere. And maybe there is a cultural aspect to tolerance for these rules too.
But whether you agree or disagree, Singapore makes you think twice whether you're right about your beliefs.
So the Singapore thing is only a puzzle for those who refuse to accept that Confucian values had been working pretty well as a political ideology for hundreds of years in Asia (until the world flipped upside down in the past two centuries).
For example, if you look more closely at Japan, while their politics is arguably more democratic, the culture has an obvious authoritarian slant as well. Mostly unnoticeable to foreigners but it's there. Some of what you described regarding Singapore also applies to Japan, albeit sometimes those things might be enforced culturally and not necessarily in law. (But then, look up their criminal conviction rate if you want to be scared.)
China is another example. People often have strong (and often irrationally emotional) opinions about politics in China, but I suppose we can agree that the past narrative about the Chinese government having to implement democratic reforms or perish has lost much credibility by now.
I mean, everyone has their own opinions about what is a "moral" way to run a country, but if we're talking about achieving objective results with Confucian-style-paternalistic-authoritarian governments, Singapore isn't really an exception. (In fact, it might be the only way East Asian countries know how to properly run a country. There's more to public administration than democratic elections)
I had not heard of that, that is interesting to know. Well, the government certainly still does make mistakes. It is not infallible by any measure.
Are you speaking of the restriction on conscription of Malay citizens? Which would naturally preclude them from being in the Air Force in similar numbers? Or some worse actual policy of exclusion?
LKY also said, not that long ago, that “Singapore wasn’t ready for an Indian Prime Minister”.
Singapore’s perception of causing “racial disharmony” is very different from the West. In fact, the ruling party in Singapore has been speaking against importing any sort of “woke politics”.
> LKY also said, not that long ago, that “Singapore wasn’t ready for an Indian Prime Minister”.
1988 seems like a lifetime ago [1]:
> Back in 1988, LKY said that he would have considered then Minister for National Development, S Dhanabalan for Prime MInister had he not been Indian. LKY was certain of the opinion back then, that Singapore was not ready for a non-Chinese Prime Minister.
I have no interest in mounting a defense for the Singapore government, I don't know what the truth is and have none of the facts outside of this article.
On the topic of libel, I do believe there should be consequences (perhaps not $100k but enough to strongly deter individuals and media) for spreading unsubstantiated claims / accusations that negatively impact someone's reputation. It takes a lifetime to build a reputation and can be destroyed on a whim - along with your career - without due process. The consequences of this can be devastating to people and their families for the remainder of their lives. It's not just sharing a link, damage is being done here.
I don't agree with the general tone of most of the comments at all. A lot of people seem to conflate holding people accountable for lies that damage other people's reputation or honor with authoritarianism or lack of freedom.
Letting that kind of lying go unpunished does not enhance freedom. It destroys discourse and it destroys people's respect for governance. If these laws were simply a tool for corruption, then Singapore would be the most corrupt, dysfunctional place on earth. It clearly isn't.
I think actually the opposite is true. When you let people libel and lie with impunity you destroy any respect for leadership, truth and politicians itself will stop holding themselves to any standard, because after all anyone can slander you anyway, so why even bother.
It seems to have become common in Western discourse to conflate truth with power. Any speech against individuals who hold a position of power is legitimate, any defense from people in position of power is illegitimate and tyrannical. This cannot be right because the end result is that no legitimate exercise of power is even possible. Someone who posts on Facebook is not automatically the hero of the people, and the Prime Minister is not automatically wrong.
To the contrary, government control of the 'truth' is quite corrosive to freedom, discourse and everything else.
What we need are principled institutions that don't lie.
Edit - adding a reference [1]
"Those who criticize the government or the judiciary, or publicly discuss race and religion, frequently find themselves facing criminal investigations and charges, or civil defamation suits and crippling damages."
You're not engaging my actual argument at all. Criticism of the government can obliviously be based on lies. It depends entirely on what your accusation is based on. Why is a court deciding on whether an accusation is true or not corrosive to freedom? Why is it corrosive to discourse? How do you have discourse without having an arbiter of truth?
You don't just need principled institutions that don't lie, you need principled people that don't lie. Why do you think institutions are supposed to be held accountable but citizens are not? Why is a government official supposed to be punished if they lie to the public, but a person on Facebook isn't? In either case lies are undermining social trust.
These questions require actual answers rather than platitudes about freedom or dogma.
"A lot of people seem to conflate holding people accountable for lies that damage other people's reputation or honor with authoritarianism or lack of freedom."
If the determination of the truth (i.e. what is a lie or not) is established by the 'authority', then there's no basis of credibility in your statement.
It's naive to suggest we live in a magical world wherein the truth and falsehoods can easily be determined, or that statements can be even themselves deemed conclusive.
"The Prime Minister Engaged in Fraud"
"It looks like the Prime Minister Engaged in Fraud"
"The Prime Minister was motivated to commit Fraud by this circumstance, and I suspect he did"
Now tell me, which one of those is 'lies and slander'?
How is the determination of 'fraud' even made?
On the basis of a court ruling?
How can someone speculate about malicious activity and do the reporting, the work which often leads to more material investigations in the first place, if it's illegal?
"Why do you think institutions are supposed to be held accountable but citizens are not? "
I didn't remotely say that or imply that, but 'institutions' - i.e. the Judiciary, the Press, Legislative, Bureaucracy, Academia are held to higher standard because there's a proportionality to their claims to legitimacy: if John Smith wants to say 'The PM is a fraud' - it means something different than when the 'Paper of Record' says 'John is a Fraud'.
"These questions require actual answers rather than platitudes about freedom or dogma."
Freedom of Expression is not a 'dogma' or a 'platitude' - it's fundamental to the well being of society which is why they are entrenched in every constitution of the modern age i.e. EU, Canada, USA etc..
Because as it turns out, democracy is orthogonal to having a productive country and competitive market. The belief that one is required for the other was one of the big lies of the second half of 20th century.
No non-colonial democracy has managed to go from underdeveloped to developed since WW2.
SK, China, Taiwan, Singapore, Chile and Malaysia all had their key growth during authoritarian regimes. Many later transitioned to democracies, but that's easy when the hard part is done.
Sadly, I reached this when desperately looking for a democratic country for India (my home country) to emulate as a model. As a believer in democracy, I would love to be corrected. But my research indicates that Demovracy does truly have a shoddy track record at spurring development.
At the same time there are counter examples of North Korea, Zimbabwe, Pakistan and India (since 2014) a authoritarian rule bring more economic downfall with concentration of power and wealth in the hands of selected few.
Indeed the most interesting example in this is India where growth, prosperity and position on human development index became better when it was free than at present when it is partly free.
China, South Korea, Japan, Taiwan grown exponentially not due to authoritarian rule but due to the hard work of their people and in the belief that with hard work they can change life (very much embedded in Confucius teachings). The only thing government did was not to come in the way of the people to have better life through hard work.
South Korea expanded rapidly during a military dictatorship in the 1960s and 1970s[1]. A large chunk of of their economy was (is??) tied to huge conglomerates with major ties to the government known as Chaebols[2].
> The only thing government did was not to come in the way of the people to have better life through hard work.
At least in the case of South Korea, that is demonstrably false. There were, and are, lots of links between these large, successful international Chaebols and the government. Without government support, and protectionist measures shielding them from foreign competition it's unlikely they'd have grown as large and successful as they are today (similar to China today blocking foreign Big Tech companies from operating in China, to grow their own national champions).
I know less about the other Asian economies you mention, but the "East Asian Model"[3] runs contrary to what you say about hard work alone.
Chaebols of South Korea are same as big conglomerates and top 1% in USA who control livelihood of majority of Americans. So this will mean that USA is same as South Korea driven by America first policy.
USA foreign policy and access to market is also dependent on America first policy driven by large conglomerates not very different from those in South Korea, China and Japan. Recently there are ample examples where USA restricted market access when it’s own conglomerates are in trouble (using some flimsy excuse in the name of security and national interests).
Besides reading some report please spend time in those countries and you will know an average citizens commitment to hard work in general (don’t make exception as rule). Prosperity do not come due to government policy but due to hard work of majority.
Downvoters: Can you explain why you are downvoting? The last paragraph might be debated, but many downvotes with zero comments? That makes no sense to me. The first two paragraphs are spot-on.
Even if you don't like the style of last paragraph, if you just look at the number of hours per worker in those countries, it is globally leading. There is real substance in this comment.
There are leaps of logic here that do not compute.
For one, I would not trust any news that comes out about India right now. Both sides of reporting are so heavily colored by ideology, that most reports might as well be pledges of allegiance rather than sources of information. India's biggest boom came during 1991 (liberalization) which was a failure of democracy pushed through during a political and economic crisis. (Domestic terrorist assassination of popular leader + IMF threatening India to liberalize against popular opinion).
If anything, the economic failures of Modi showcase the problems of large democracies. It always devolves into populism and procedural in-action, where major changes can only be done by stealth; and thus haphazardly.
> North Korea, Zimbabwe, Pakistan and India
It has to be a cruel joke to mention India with 3 failed military states, when it has one of the the strongest election commissions in the world.
> concentration of power and wealth in the hands of selected few
Given that India was run by 1 family for 60 years, the burden of Proof is on you to show that the current Govt. has a greater concentration of wealth. India has always had a concentration of power in a few hands. It's just that the current bearers of that power are disliked by western elites.
PS: I do not particularly love Modi. His economic policies have been shoddy and I would prefer someone less tied to a narrow view of hinduism. But, the Indian opposition right now is more incompetent than fish climbing a tree.
________________________
> Confucius teachings
> government did was not to come in the way of the people to have better life through hard work.
Could not be farther away from the truth. Each of these govts inserted themselves strongly into personal life and their growth came during a short duration of strong authoritarianism.
Japan (A world superpower in 1945 with high HDI) and China (as large as large govt) should be the last countries to be referenced for the point you are making.
It showcase the result of disrespect of plurality in society and promoting hatred and Nazi style Hindu supremacy forgetting the complex geopolitical and cultural diversity of India.
> Given that India was run by 1 family for 60 years,
You mean to say India was an authoritarian state ruled by one family for last 60 years and only after 2014 it became free (HDI, poverty alleviation, education, from free to partly free tell a different story). Anyways these statement reflects the ardent follower logic of Hindu nationalist (in India it will be called M--- bhakt logic).
> Each of these govts inserted themselves strongly into personal life
Lived long enough in all these countries to know first hand that the development happened not because of the government but by work done by its citizens. Indeed USA itself is reaping the benefits of the hard work done by its own citizens with emphasis on science and engineering, not superstition and same apply to all these countries.
Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore and China in spite of very different political system were able to achieve similar trajectory of growth founded in hard work with emphasis on science and engineering instead of superstition. So they are a reference point.
China took 1.4 billion people out of poverty and made them moderately wealthy society with almost 99% literacy rates and 100% in all tier 1,2 and 3 cities. Its not because of the government, but because of its people and their emphasis on education.
During Mao Tse-tung (毛泽东), China was an authoritarian state and government was in every walk of life and during that time it was behind India, when it came to all the parameters of HDI (human development index). Food was rationed and there is lost generation during that time which did not go to university at all. All the progress happened when authoritarianism started to fade away from society giving space to it's citizens to learn, work and earn a decent living without state.
May be brush up some history on these countries, you will realize that their growth story is rooted in their citizens quest for better life through education, hard work with emphasis on science and engineering instead of superstition, race or religion supremacy theory.
I am delighted. You must've helped me win some bingo out there.
* Nazi style Hindu supremacy
* M--- bhakt
* Mao Tse-tung (毛泽东)
* free to partly free
1 question: Where in South Delhi are you from ?
Also, while we are at ad-hominems..at least make the right accusations. I'm a secular (in the western sense) atheist who used to be called 'deshdrohi' in university because of my lack of attachment to Bollywood, Cricket, Hindi or Hindu. I couldn't care less about mandirs, hindu supremacy or love jihad.
> hard work with emphasis on science and engineering instead of superstition
That is pretty much India's motto right now, and such narrow perspectives on progress rarely yield good results.
p.s: I fully recognize that my comment is snarky and not considered to be right for HN. Feel free to flag it if need by.
I do not have any intention of flagging your comment a reader can see the intent in words. So I will prefer people read them instead of greying it out by downvoting.
Not from India, so probably you have some ill conceived logic in display here.
> I'm a secular (in the western sense) atheist
Not really given your statement and words used in your previous comments you seem to be a very Hindu nationalist, spreading the pseudo information that India is an authoritarian state ruled by 1 family since independence until 2014.
> That is pretty much India's motto right now
Yes precisely building a society embedded in hindu religious supremacy, pseudo science (e.g. Anti-radiotion chip from cow dung [1], cow urine for Covid [2], superstition [3], fake claims of Stephen Hawking supporting vedas and vedic theory of science by Union Minister of India [4]).
> China, South Korea, Japan, Taiwan grown exponentially not due to authoritarian rule but due to the hard work of their people and in the belief that with hard work they can change life (very much embedded in Confucius teachings).
The assertion here is that "Confucian values" led to these countries economically developing from un-developed to developed economies. Yet earlier you state the "counter example" of North Korea being an authoritarian regime that brought about economic downfall.
So,
"Confucian values" + authoritarian regime = economic growth (SK)
Czech person here, I have to agree. During the soviet era my country, a pre-WWII (even post-WWII, as the Czech part of Czechoslovakia has only seen very light fighting) industrial powerhouse, was reduced to an underdeveloped dwarf. Thirty years later I'm living in a modern country, typing on a MacBook, receiving healthcare, paying my taxes with corruption only noticeable at the highest levels of the hierarchy (politicians, union leaders), certainly not throughout the country.
I believe this has to do with the proximity of other developed and modern countries, economically, but also culturally. To put it bluntly, nobody wants to do business with a bunch of cavemen.
A lot of our original industrial development prior to 1900 was done in conditions of very limited democracy. Only wealthy people and the middle class could vote before 1907. (After that, franchise was extended to all men over 24.) Prior to that, you had to pay some minimal yearly taxes in order to have a vote, which excluded majority of the population.
After 1989, a large element in our prosperity was geographic proximity to Germany. Germans outsourced a lot of production to the Visegrad states. It definitely helped grow our GDP, but it also puts sorta-kinda ceiling on it. The most valuable parts of the entire production chain are still back in the West and they are not going to move abroad.
BTW Viktor Orbán is a great friend of the German investors and they protect him quite a bit as well. It seems that investors do not care about local state of politics much, only about stability.
> The most valuable parts of the entire production chain are still back in the West and they are not going to move abroad.
Related to that, it does seam than whenever Skoda the brand is about to surpass the models of its parent (German) company, Volkswagen, the powers that be decide that that behaviour should stop immediately.
The most recent example is the Mk2 Skoda Superb, which imho was miles ahead in terms of style above the Passat, and further back the Mk1 Skoda Octavia was also miles ahead in terms of reliability compared to anything that the VW brand had.
Wow. I recently discovered Botswana during a deep dive on Wikipedia. Botswana is the size of Metropolitan France, which has a population of ~60 million, but Botswana only has a population of 2.2 million! Resources? They have the most productive diamond mine in the world that consistently produces the highest quality large diamonds in the world.
GDP per capita? 18,500+ USD. They are solidly middle class by global standards.
Also, as I understand, the country lies just outside of the tsetse fly belt, which is very important for human development. Interestingly (and sadly), they also have one of the highest rates of HIV infection in the world, but seem to be managing it very well. (Wiki says: <<As of 2014, Botswana has the third-highest prevalence rate for HIV/AIDS, with roughly 20% of the population infected.>>)
I agree, the Botswana example is not exactly what India is looking for given the history there. To this day, the TSwanna have not diversified from diamonds. They have no industrialization to speak of.
But they have amazing, world-class nature. Tourism is, and will, be a large part of their economic growth. Mostly, they are focused on very high income travelers, not unlike Bhutan.
> But my research indicates that Demovracy does truly have a shoddy track record at spurring development.
First step is to stop referring to "democratic republics" as "Democracies" with a capital D. That's a popular misuse of the term that rulers love to abuse. It's fair to call it newspeak.
Voting every 5 years for 1 entity to rule a whole country does not make a government democratic. It's merely an escape hatch, a stopgap to tyrannical rulers. It prevents the worst, but doesn't prevent the typical government cronyism.
I think of democracy like a diversified portfolio. Putting all of your money into one stock can go either incredibly well or incredibly poorly, depending on what the one stock is.
Diversifying the portfolio is the safest option; it may not yield the highest returns, but it also never yields the lowest returns.
> Diversifying the portfolio is the safest option; it may not yield the highest returns, but it also never yields the lowest returns.
If we wave our hands and discount all the failed democracies (that turn into autocracies, or fall apart in civil wars), and if you think that the difference between India's development in the past 30 years and China's development in the past 30 years is just a matter of 'it's not the highest returns...'
One's GDP/capita grew from $300 to $10,000, the other from $300 to $2000 in that timespan. That's not a difference of 'not the highest returns', that's a quantitative difference between remaining in poverty on one hand, and a hundreds of millions of people living Western lifestyles on the other.
I think it's safe to say at this point that the historic record indicates that democracy and economic development are likely to be orthogonal.
This is a good comment. I would like to add Hongkong into that list, as it was a United Kingdom colony without any serious form of democracy during its crazy period of "Asian Tiger" growth. (Nominally, it had a local legislature, but it was toothless to pass any serious labour or economic reforms.)
Let's dig deeper. You wrote: <<But my research indicates that Democracy does truly have a shoddy track record at spurring development.>>
Zero trolling: I am always curious: How it possible that fast food restaurants (McD, etc.) in Danmark can pay the equivalent of 15 USD per hour? Yet, Danmark remains incredibly economically competitive. It is regularly short of labour (unemployment rate is considered too low by national economists). I picked Danmark instead of Norway (which has similar issues), because Danmark is not an oil major country. From the economically liberal view, Danmark should be crumbling under the weight of its personal income tax regime and globally leading wages for unskilled workers.
Can anyone with formal economics training comment on this matter? We would appreciate your thoughts.
> Nominally, it had a local legislature, but it was toothless to pass any serious labour or economic reforms.
Its members were appointed by the governor until the last ~10 years. The last governor Chris Patten implemented democratic reforms at the very end, despite protests by the Chinese government. A meaningfully democratic legislature only existed between 1994 and 1997. Before that, the legislature wasn't even "toothless", it was simply a rubber stamp, or (less cynically) a way for the government to consult influential business interests ($$$$) about impending government policies.
While not underdeveloped, huge swathes of Eastern and Central Europe have seen tremendous economic growth since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the institution of liberal democracy through the region.
It's sad, but it seems to be true, and knowing the truth is always better. We can like and promote democracy without marketing it as something it isn't, and if we're not afraid to identify areas where it isn't competitive, we can find ways to mitigate that.
I haven't read the book, rather I've only seen a long talk he gave on the topic, but Ha-Joon Chang's "Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism" believes the crucial component is not democracy, but rather modern incarnations of capitalism (let's just call it neoliberalism).
He argues that the US in particular became so wealthy in huge part due to it's non-free trade practices (while still being relatively democratic). Countries may liberalize later in development, but not before building their own industrial base, etc. My memory is quite hazy on the latter part -- I should read the actual book. However I can recommend seeking out his viewpoint.
Edit: his book is not so much a critique of capitalism, as a critique of free trade orthodoxy for developing nations.
You forgot Poland. It never had colonies. It was destroyed completely in WW2. Then exploited by the communists until there was no almost no economy left in 1989.
By today's standard Poland of 1989 can definitely be described as an underdeveloped country (annual gdp per capita $1700 usd - but the majority of population lived on a lot less). Infrastructure in shambles. Major roads and rail links designed not along North-South as the country's economy needs, but East-West to facilitate transfer of Soviet army if needed. Fast forward 30 years and things look pretty much developed. A big chunk of it was thanks to EUs money(since 2004), but one could argue access to local market for Western companies repaid them the expense many times over...
Sure there are issues with the quality of the democracy (specially inability to modernise juidiciary in last 30 years), amount of emotional arguments in public discourse etc, but overall IMO it is a good example of a democratic country that managed to make the standard of living a lot better for its citizens.
I grew up in Ostrava, close to the Polish border. Poland in the late 1980s and early 1990s was a fairly poor country. There were massive shortages of stuff in shops, a serious inflation (I remember looking at a 500,000 zloty banknote in a mixture of awe and dread) and a black market that was doing its best and worst to keep people supplied somehow.
Polish economic miracle is incredible. Warsaw looks like a Manhattan built on a steppe, and living standards of ordinary Polish citizens have gone through the roof in a single generation.
This is true. So long as the government is run by capable people who are looking out for the greater good. This was Rome under someone like Caesar. But you can also end up with a Nero or Commodus running things.
To whom will monuments be built a century from now? Among them, perhaps, will be Lee Kuan Yew. He will be remembered not only as the first prime minister of Singapore, but also as the creator of authoritarian capitalism, an ideology set to shape the next century much as democracy shaped the last.
It was, after all, to Singapore that Deng Xiaoping came before enacting his far-reaching economic reforms in China. Until then, capitalism and democracy had seemed inextricably linked. Now the link is broken.
In Star Trek (TOS: "Patterns of Force", "Whom Gods Destroy"), Lee Kuan is the name given to a historical political despot on Earth sometime between the mid-20th and the 23rd century.
Lee Kuan shares naming elements with Lee Kuan Yew, the first Prime Minister of the newly independent Singapore in the 1960s. Lee established a hybrid form of governance with democratic and authoritarian elements.
They are very disciplined and targeted in their authoritarianism. It doesn't pervade daily life the way it does in China. They have free and open communication with the world. They have a vibrant consumer economy and a genuine multicultural society. They apply censorship and repression with a scalpel, not a broadsword. Law-abiding citizens reap a lot of rewards from living in a society like that and are willing to look the other way at the occasional arrest for being outspoken.
I spent some time there and met a bunch of locals from different backgrounds. Some were outright enthusiastic about the authoritarian government and thought the ends justified the means. Some (Malay folks in particular) chafed at the enforced rigidity of the society, but they still had comfortable lives.
Because the World Economic Forum cares for global competitiveness, and pro market propaganda (when it serves its controllers interests), not for democracy...
Why would an association of the wealthiest capitalists in the world not give a rat's ass about democracy as long as the $$$ is flowing? Is that what you're asking?
This is so sad , elected governments also try and do this. The most liberal state in India (higher on a lot of HR indices) , tried to add in a law and got slapped on the wrists (may be election time tactic)
This is the new norm , post something and disappear into thin air as if the poster did not exist , get trolled , threatened , coerced into apologies or be threatened with law suits (notorious cases like this https://techcrunch.com/2020/11/22/whitehat-jrs-founder-files...)
Cannot help but feel bad that "Man is born free ,everywhere he is in chains". Just cork up , and move on.
> "While Lee won the case, public opinion is a different matter. Leong crowdfunded the $100,000 in just 11 days, with over 2,000 people contributing amounts large and small."
- Defamation or slander is also illegal in the U.K. upon which the Singapore system is based. It’s much easier to be convicted of that in the U.K. than the US
- That said, I would agree that this is a pretty weak case with the convicted simply sharing a link to an article that contained false statements about the PM
- Having spent considerable time in Singapore I’m not sure I’d label them authoritarian - at least not in the way it’s commonly used.
- Legitimate elections are held although the ruling party has set up a system that is favorable to them holding power (though not impossible for them to lose)
- There is an underlying sense by the ruling party that Singapore as a system is not that stable so the govt actually works quite hard to stay on the people’s good side. Recently the govt admitted that Covid tracing data could be used for police investigations which contradicted prior statements and it did not go over well. The govt basically apologized for mishandling it and added additional protections (though didn’t back down entirely). It’s a bizarre system where the govt holds a lot of power but is very concerned about not having support.
So not excusing the lawsuit (because I think it’s a net harm) but adding some context.
Good comparison to Western restrictions on slander or libel because Singapore is one few countries to actually have a an "anti-fake news law" which many in the West desire and it absolutely proves the fear that it can very easily be abused
Can any British people comment on libel laws in the United Kingdom? Libel is much easier to prove in UK compared to US. Do politicians try to use it to silence critics or media? Is it ever successful? Or do they show restraint?
Further: If anyone else can comment about libel in their own country (that is not UK/Singapura), please kindly comment. We are curious to learn more!
To be clear: I am not making a judgement about libel laws. It is a complex matter for each society to decide.
> His decision to sue Leong was one that he had arrived at after consultation with his lawyer
That speaks volumes. "I am probably corrupt, but definitely too lazy to chase the original source, because a) it will cost more, and b) I'm corrupt probably corrupt and the article is speaks the truth". I believe that the "b)" is more likely (let's see if he will sue me!!)
On the other hand, this politician doesn't care if a random guy in the UK has a negative and correct opinion of him, he cares that his people sit down and shut up while he goes about his (corrupt) business.
Another point towards this direction is that.. politicians usually sue somebody that defamed them, and then DONATE the proceeds to charities. Not this one I guess..
>> His decision to sue Leong was one that he had arrived at after consultation with his lawyer
> That speaks volumes. "I am probably corrupt, but definitely too lazy to chase the original source, because a) it will cost more, and b) I'm corrupt probably corrupt and the article is speaks the truth". I believe that the "b)" is more likely (let's see if he will sue me!!)
The Singapore government has set multiple precendents about ministers having to sue to protect their integrity [1]:
> But if they've defamed us, we have to sue them -- because if we don't, our own integrity will be suspect. We have an understanding that if a minister is defamed and he does not sue, he must leave cabinet.
Well, no, the defamatory allegations here were quite clearly bullshit. (The 1MDB scandal brought down the Malaysian PM in question and a lot of dirty laundry has been aired, so if there was substance to them, we'd know by now.)
But the original source was a Malaysian blog, and suing them across the border would have been pointless.
“Any libel or slander of their character with respect to their public service damages not only their personal reputation, but also the reputation of Singapore as a state whose leaders have acquired a worldwide reputation for honesty and integrity in office and dedication to service of the people.”
Ah, so the Singaporean government is absolutely corrupt from top to bottom. Good to know.
It's very trendy and progressive in the US these days to want to put restrictions on the First Amendment. Most of the people who champion that cause have no idea how shitty things can get without free-speech protections.
it's a common theme among "smart-cities" marketers and cybersecurity wonks to cite Singapore (and other exotic one-off social structures) as role models for everyone else.
Singapore likes to paint itself as open and its locals even believe it (the reference for contrast is Johor Baru or Medan which are ofc hard to compare). But it's just the effect of their own propaganda and brain washing (heavy censorship in film and art). When I lived there (90ies) you could sill buy a cane in the corner shop who were sold with the sole purpose of whipping and conditioning their kids.
I couldn't find anything similar about Cruz in a couple of minutes, mostly because the search term "Cruz critics" is massively dominated by stuff about his ill-advised Cancun trip.
Makes me wish I had a global enough reach to troll the Singaporean government. More of the wold should have protections such that people under a government are free to say all sorts of things about their elected leaders (except to incite violence or death threats of course but you know basic free speech).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._B._Jeyaretnam#Defamation_su...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chee_Soon_Juan#2002%E2%80%9320...
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2004/sep/03/pressandpublis...
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2009/11/singapore-def...
Not a complete list, but that's the "precedent", not this.