Greetings, new readers who are here via my favouritest newspaper in the whole wide world, The Sydney Morning Herald, which said this morning:
Singapore has barred servicemen from posting unauthorised accounts and pictures of military life on the internet in a further tightening of restrictions on the growing blogging community here.
The new rules, made public by the Sunday Times, followed the conviction of two ethnic Chinese bloggers for posting anti-Muslim tirades deemed as threats to social harmony and political stability in the multi-racial city state.
The newspaper said at least three national servicemen including one of Singapore’s most popular bloggers were told by the Ministry of Defence and military officers to take down personal postings about army life overseas…
Please read my previous post again. There was no barring. There is no tightening. Everything’s still loose (and maybe that’s the problem).
Last week, a Crystal (is your middle name Jade?) Chan from the New Paper emailed and then called me to ask me some questions, mostly about whether there were differences between Singaporean and American bloggers, and whether there the clampdown had affected us Singaporean bloggers.
So, I tells her, “3 sedition convictions and 1 attempted defamation action does not equate to a clampdown, and in fact you’re more likely to be sued in the States for defamation than you are here”.
I’ll now add to that and say, “3 sedition convictions, 1 attempted defamation action and 3 warnings from MINDEF and a partridge in a pear tree does not equate to a clampdown…”
I’ll even post an Army-related video just to prove a point!
Press 1 to pay $5000 fine and escape National Service altogether
Video: Mr Miyagi gets a National Service call up while recording the mrbrown show (.mov file, 1Mb, 30sec – recorded by Kenny Sia) Subscribe to Multimedia Miyagi
Technorati Tags: army, blog, ExWallaby2005, MINDEF, Mr Miyagi, nationalservice, podcast, Singapore, SMH, Straits Times
It seems eminently sensible to me that any army wouldn’t want its soldiers – reservist or otherwise – blogging about military exercises or operations. Your posts were innocuous, but the army simply isn’t in a position to be scouring the ‘net, checking which posts about exercises are innocuous and which aren’t.
I’d be curious what policies other countries have on similar matters. For example, US servicemen are – as far as I know – not allowed to mention their location (apart from a very general statement) in their correspondence home.
It seems eminently sensible to me that any army wouldn’t want its soldiers – reservist or otherwise – blogging about military exercises or operations. Your posts were innocuous, but the army simply isn’t in a position to be scouring the ‘net, checking which posts about exercises are innocuous and which aren’t.
I’d be curious what policies other countries have on similar matters. For example, US servicemen are – as far as I know – not allowed to mention their location (apart from a very general statement) in their correspondence home.
Can I know what is your basis for this claim?
Can I know what is your basis for this claim?
Hey, I came to your website via an article published in the Star (local english daily) about the NS post.
I don’t really frequent your website but I gotta say your blog is highly entertaining and funny. I’ve never had anyone explain how NS life/training perspective is like to me and being able to read few accounts of it at your site and others keeps me very entertained!! Come to think of it, I wouldn’t ‘mind’ trading a week of my boring and hectic corporate life to a week at Boot camp. Heh, maybe I can shed a few pounds too!
Loved the post (think it was on singaporearmystory@blogspot) about how a troop of you guys scrambled at the mere mention of the word “Signal!”
Keep it up!
Hey, I came to your website via an article published in the Star (local english daily) about the NS post.
I don’t really frequent your website but I gotta say your blog is highly entertaining and funny. I’ve never had anyone explain how NS life/training perspective is like to me and being able to read few accounts of it at your site and others keeps me very entertained!! Come to think of it, I wouldn’t ‘mind’ trading a week of my boring and hectic corporate life to a week at Boot camp. Heh, maybe I can shed a few pounds too!
Loved the post (think it was on singaporearmystory@blogspot) about how a troop of you guys scrambled at the mere mention of the word “Signal!”
Keep it up!