Liars, to blog or not to blog ?

(Image courtesy of Kickdefella)

Last year, Singapore's bloggers and Web-based writers signaled that they were a force to be reckoned with. And in a state where government control over the mainstream media has been a fact of life for more than four decades, Singapore's freewheeling blogosphere is set to have significant political and social ramifications.

It's still altogether unclear what direction the Internet revolution will take in Singapore. While there have been few moves toward legally protecting Internet-based writers, there haven't yet been any official signs of a comprehensive clampdown, despite an accelerating migration of readers from the traditional media to the digital medium.

The political content on many blogs was overwhelmingly anti-government, a fact recognized by People's Action Party (PAP) politicians after the elections, which, as usual, the party swept in resounding fashion.

"I know that something has gone wrong when more than 85% [of the bloggers] write negatively about the PAP," ruling-party member of Parliament Denise Phua told a public forum. The government should figure out how to "manage this channel of communication", she added, a remark that itself brought down a ton of digital bricks on her head.

Two months later, optimism about freedom of speech over the Internet would be tempered. The government objected strenuously to a column written by a well-known blogger, "Mr Brown", published in a print daily newspaper, in which it was alleged that the government had withheld adverse economic data from the public until after the elections. The newspaper promptly ditched "Mr Brown" from his regular column. Bloggers saw that as heavy-handed punishment for controversial postings in the blogosphere.

Thus freedom on Singapore's Web may only be a luxury so long as blogs and website audiences remain small and atomized.

It is notable that where Malaysia has spawned the critical Malaysiakini.com and South Korea has the widely read OhMyNews.com, in Singapore, despite a vibrant blogosphere and Asia's third-highest Internet penetration rate, so far nothing as established has blossomed in the island state.

In Malaysia, the popularity of some liars postings is forcing the authorities to take them seriously.

IS DATUK Seri Abdullah Badawi remarrying?, the Prime Minister, who lost his wife to cancer in 2005, was asked about it this week. He took the question sportingly, and laughingly brushed it off as 'just rumours'.

Few were surprised that the news first popped up on Raja Petra Kamarudin's website, Malaysia Today, several weeks ago.

Raja Petra, 56, does not fit into a neat box - he is a writer, political analyst, activist and, generally speaking, a man in the know.

He ran several businesses for more than 20 years, but cashed out in 1998. These days, he administers his website full-time and pays for its operation from his own pocket, he says.

His website is extremely popular, getting some 1.5 million hits a day, because it conveniently gathers Malaysian news from diverse sources into one site.

No one is spared, not least the Prime Minister's son-in-law Khairy Jamaluddin. Scores of outrageous stories about him were posted week after week last year under the heading 'Khairy Chronicles'.

How much of this was fiction, how much the truth - that was left for the reader to figure out.

One of them was his story that the Prime Minister had allegedly bought a new jet. It astounded many when the government confirmed there was indeed a new plane, but it was for government use, including the King, not just the Prime Minister.


His connections give him access to all kinds of politicians and, besides, he is a gregarious sort of person.


Raja Petra is probably the best-known Malaysian Internet writer today, but he is not alone in dishing out nuggets of scandals.

One of the more recent stories - the Prime Minister's supposed purchase of a yacht in Turkey - was first written in a blog by former New Straits Times (NST) editor Ahiruddin Attan.

This forced the Prime Minister to publicly deny the news.


In the last few weeks, the Internet has churned out allegations of graft against Deputy Internal Security Minister Johari Baharum and Anti-Corruption Agency director-general Zulkipli Mat Noor.

These allegations were quickly picked up by the mainstream media, and the police are now investigating.

As websites of varying credibility lift the lid off scandals and sticky issues and attract sizeable numbers of readers, the authorities find they cannot afford to look the other way.

'They do not have a choice. At first they ignored it but the information gets down to the ground. The Internet pages are printed out, translated and distributed to the rural constituents,' Raja Petra said.

Mr Khoo Kay Peng, a political analyst, said the government has to act as Internet claims are slowly gaining credibility after several allegations were proven to be true.

He added: 'More and more people are seeing the Internet as a channel for their complaints.'

Tan Sri Ramon Navaratnam, chairman of Transparency International Malaysia, also said that the authorities must be open to receiving complaints of all types because corruption is an insidious crime.

Freedom of expression over the Internet is being put to the test in Malaysia, where two bloggers are being sued for their postings by the politically influenced New Straits Times newspaper.

Malaysia's mainstream newspaper NST has sued two bloggers for allegedly libelling its editors. One is former editor Mr Ahiruddin whose blog was a source of information and gossip about the NST and its management.

The other target of the NST suit was information technology expert Jeff Ooi, 45, who came to public attention after he started his hard-hitting Screenshots blog several years ago.