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Facebook urges Singapore government to respect ‘free expression’ as it complies with fake news law
- The site attached a label to a blogger’s post that said it was ‘legally required’ to tell users ‘the Singapore government says this post has false information’
- Facebook’s notice was linked to an official website detailing the government’s assertions on why the dissident’s post contained false statements of fact
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Facebook on Saturday urged Singapore’s government to respect free expression and implement the country’s new fake news law transparently, after it complied with an order to correct a dissident blogger’s post.
The social media giant attached a label to the November 23 post by the “States Times Review” page that said it was “legally required” to tell users that “the Singapore government says this post has false information”.
The notice was linked to an official website outlining the government’s detailed assertions on why the post, wrote by the Australia-based blogger Alex Tan Zhi Xiang, contained false statements of fact.
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Screenshots of the label – attached to the end of the Facebook post – was uploaded by local media outlets, but could only be seen by some users of the social media platform.
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It was not visible on Facebook accounts accessed by This Week in Asia.
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