Singapore introduces anti-fake news law to counter falsehoods aimed at ‘exploiting’ the city’s ‘fault lines’
- The proposed law steps up existing powers the government has to compel news outlets to display corrections or disclaimers about falsehoods in published content
Among the proposed measures are penalties of up to 10 years’ jail time and S$1 million (US$738,500) in fines for the most severe cases of fake news propagation.
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Legal action will be taken when the “deliberate online falsehood” meets two criteria: when there is dissemination of a false statement of fact, and when such action is deemed in the public interest, the law ministry said in a statement.
The law ministry cited a false statement that the government had declared war on its neighbours as an example of a “false statement of fact”. It said the bill was not targeting opinion, criticism, satire or parody.
The introduction of the Protection From Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Bill followed rare public hearings last year on the fake news threat.
The eight-day parliamentary select committee hearing at the time faced criticism for the way some officials had appeared overly eager to push through fresh legislation even though some experts had testified it should not be seen as the definitive cure to the problem.
If we do not protect ourselves, hostile parties will find a simple matter to turn different groups against one another and cause disorder in our society.
The proposed new law steps up existing powers the government has to compel news outlets to display corrections or disclaimers about falsehoods in published content.
The law, meanwhile, also allows the government to squeeze portals financially if they are found to be repeat offenders.
Digital advertisement operators can be asked to shut off advertisements to these portals.
Prime Minister Lee said last week that the measures were necessary to protect the multiracial city state’s “enduring fault lines” from being “exploited”.
“If we do not protect ourselves, hostile parties will find a simple matter to turn different groups against one another and cause disorder in our society,” Lee said.
In the public hearing last year, the city state’s influential law and home affairs minister Kasiviswanathan Shanmugam questioned whether social media giants was able to regulate itself.
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Simon Milner, Facebook’s vice-president of public policy for Asia-Pacific, in turn suggested during the hearing that Singapore appeared to be in a rush to enact the new laws.
The bill introduced on Monday, while directed mainly at individuals and websites involved in fake news dissemination, also includes provisions for social media companies to comply with a binding “code of practice”.
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In an unrelated ministerial statement on Monday about the government’s effort in dealing with hate speech, Shanmugam said the anti-fake news bill was “one step” in dealing with problems on social media.
“We will have to consider what else,” he was quoted as saying by state broadcaster Channel NewsAsia.
During the public hearing last year, pro-free speech activists told lawmakers the government already had ample powers in existing legislation to deal with fake news. Instead of a fresh set of laws, they suggested improving media literacy and enacting a freedom of information act.
If parliament passes the bill into law, Singapore will join a small number of countries that have enacted fake news-specific laws – a measure rights group warn could be abused by governments to silence legitimate dissent.
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Russian President Vladimir Putin last month signed into law new fines for people found disseminating fake news or insulting authorities online.
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