Summary Report On The Recent Anti-Fake News Special Hearing In Little Red Dot

Here’s my overall impression of the recently concluded late March hearings by the Singapore gov. Select Committee on Deliberate Online Falsehoods:

Faute de mieux, allow me to partially quote Abe Lincoln — the world will little note nor long remember what we say here. End quote. In my Jan. 16 Fb post, I did characterize the above well-intentioned hearing as a mock-heroic effort at combating cyberspace fake news, and again here’s why…

1. In all seriousness, as it stands, Singapore does not need any more legislation(s) — ever more expansive, punitive and restrictive ones — than what it already has at the ready to combat nefarious online fake news. So on this score, I’m in line with independent journalist Ms. Kirsten Han’s views expressed at the hearing with respect to the superfluity of any implied new legal strictures bandied about to counter this ever mushrooming fake news phenomenon of the 21st century. Where we differ altogether is her reluctance or ambivalence in seeing official involvement in the expurgation of online vicious falsehoods. Really, that’s a moot point. Since when in Singapore has the gov. ever vacillated in censoring or clamping down on any suspect activities deemed inimical to its national interest/security? Whereas in America for instance, there is the First Amendment guarantee of free speech to contend with, there is none such in Singapore; any uncovered seriously nefarious/spurious online news operation will doubtless be taken down in a heartbeat.

2. Indeed, in this day and age of the Internet, it is incumbent upon every cyber-visitor to discern what they read online with their eyes peeled, and readily spread the word should it smell fishy. (As an aside here, intended as a note of levity not mockery, I recalled about 2 years ago, reading said journalist Kirsten Han’s Fb social media, her re-posting of a titbit about a Singaporean eaten alive by alligator in Florida; happily, another Fb poster promptly alerted her to the fakery of its authorship.)

3. Finally, I suspect my opening borrowed words from A. Lincoln in describing the reaction to what transpired in the 8-day, 50-hour-long anti-fake news hearing, will be just that — that it shall be all forgotten soon… except for two visages: the congenial historian Dr. Thum and the cantankerous malcontent Ms. Han Hui Hui. Frankly, I’m flabbergasted by the 5-hour-plus grilling Dr. Thum was subjected to in the hearing that evidently has nothing to do with tackling the proliferation of Internet fake news. Instead, his invited presence turned into a preternatural hearing in disquisition on intertextual analysis of his research work. As for Ms. Han Hui Hui whom I have once dubbed in my blogpost the Singkie Joan-of-Arc wannabe because of her once-upon-a-time role imagined by the then incarcerated teen hellion Amos Yee to be his rescuer from U.S. asylum detention — but I digress here — in fairness to Ms. Han, the truth of what actually did occur during the hearing concerning her reported disruption of the proceeding, will never be independently corroborated … all thanks to the parsimony of live TV broadcast. Indeed, Little Red Dot has ways to go to catch up with the best practices of First World democracies in favoring live TV transparency be it in parliamentary debates or in select ad hoc hearings.