K Shanmugam
Singapore
“Bank accounts are frozen when there is reason to suspect that the bank accounts are involved in illicit activities, including money laundering activities.”
“The Singapore Police Force does not track the requested data. Distinguishing artificial intelligence (AI)-generated content typically requires more detailed forensic examination which may not be necessary in every investigation and may also not be conclusive as to whether AI-generative tools were used.”
“The Building and Construction Authority’s Code on Accessibility provides baseline requirements for accessible and inclusive buildings. It stipulates a minimum width of 1.5 metres or 1.8 metres for primary accessible routes, depending on the building type.”
“The Road Traffic (Motor Vehicles, Driving Licence) Rules under the Road Traffic Act set out the scope of the medical assessment required for motorists aged 65 and above who wish to retain their driving licences.”
“When a Police report has been made, the Police will investigate to determine if a criminal offence has been committed. If there is reasonable suspicion that a case is scam-related, the Police can direct online service providers to restrict Singapore users' access to the relevant online activity under the Online Criminal Harms Act.”
“Through intelligence sharing and coordinated enforcement actions, the cross-border operation disrupted a transnational drug trafficking syndicate and downstream drug trafficking activities, with the UK arresting seven persons so far and further investigations underway.”
The complete record
Every one of 4,552 lines we hold for K Shanmugam, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 53 of 92.
“You deal with the Government in Parliament.”
“So, let us have some faith in representative democracy. We have the institutions and we are using them well. We do not need to run after new institutions just because the UK, Australia, China, Pakistan and Zimbabwe have them. Do they help in better governance? Then, there were questions about what if Government itself spreads falsehoods? POFMA is here to deal with a serious problem. Everyone accepts it is a serious problem. So, the question of whether there should be POFMA should be dealt with by reference to whether it is a serious issue that needs to be dealt with. The SC says it is a serious issue. I have not heard any speech that says it is not a serious issue. Do we have a Bill? I think there is very little disagreement that there should be legislation. There is some argument about how that legislation ought to be. I will come to that. But then to say, "Oh, well, what about other aspects, what about Government?" It is not really an answer. The second point I make is, what is the extent, what is the extent of the Government spreading falsehoods, and what has been the damage to society so far in the context of all the evidence that I have laid out to you, to the House, yesterday about how falsehoods have been damaging society after society, country after country around the world? And assuming the Government puts out a falsehood, are there no remedies? I just talked about representative democracy. Can Members here ask questions? Expose? Can you ask for an explanation? Will there have to be an explanation? And if there is no credible explanation, what happens to the Minister or Ministry that puts out that falsehood? That is what a debate in Parliament means. That is what questions in Parliament mean. That is what an open Parliament means.”
“Questions have been raised about Mr Pang – Committees of Inquiry have been held, Government has been questioned on the findings; it is held accountable, it has provided information. Now, if your residents have questions, or anybody else has questions, they can approach the Members of Parliament, they can approach the Nominated Members of Parliament. "Representative democracy" means that at your level, you go through those questions and if somebody comes and asks you, "I want to know who are all the eligible women in SAF?", I do not think "representative democracy" means you will come here and ask that question. And if you did, I doubt very much if you will remain a Member of Parliament for very long after that. So, there is a certain responsibility on you to mediate the questions that your residents ask and then come here and ask sensible questions, ask questions that matter for governance, ask questions that matter for society at large and ignore the frivolous questions and, indeed, explain to your resident why those questions ought not to be asked. That makes a lot of sense, rather than an Act and legislation which has, firstly, tied up resources. Let us not talk theory, let us talk reality. I have given you examples in the UK from the Head of Civil Service and very senior people in Australia about how civil servants have started behaving, how discussions within government have been tied up. And second, the kind of requests that are being made. Can you imagine any Member here asking about how many toilet rolls the Ministry of Home Affairs may have used up? Of what public interest is that? Why should it take up Parliament's time? Why should it take up my civil servants' time? And if you did, if you did ask me, I will ask you to explain why you are asking it.”
“Businesses go to the Freedom of Information Act to find out lots of information to help their business. Lawyers, lobbyists, journalists – these are the people who put in the bulk of the requests. And when I give you the examples, it is immediately clear to you why. Is that the best way of improving governance? May I suggest that a better way is what we have now – this Parliament. You are all representatives who are elected by the people, some of you are appointed as Nominated Members of Parliament. But you are here in a representative Parliament which is sovereign. You can ask for any information that you want and we will either have to give you the information or we will have to explain to you why we cannot give it. And if you look at the questions that have been raised in this Parliament just in the last two sessions, February to May, we debated since the Budget Debate two Private Members' Motions, one Adjournment Motion by Mr Pritam Singh, data security, election procedures, CPF payouts, racial and religious harmony, regard for women, including protection, development of the Malay/Muslim community, long-term care financing, mental health, bilateral relations with Malaysia, foreign policy positioning, safe use of personal mobility devices, management of stock exchange, power failures, NUS. You name it. Anything that is happening out there, we are discussing them here, month by month. And you look at the number of questions. If you cannot have time, you do not have enough time for the oral Parliamentary Questions, you convert it to Written question, it has to be answered. And, again, if it is not answered, there has got to be a good reason.”
“John Fraser, Australia’s Secretary of the Department of Treasury, said this: “Freedom of Information has made people extremely careful in the public service about what they put on paper and that is sad...Open policy debate means people have got to be candid.” So, it is affecting open debate within government because nobody wants to put it on paper because if you put it on paper, under the Freedom of Information Act somebody will get it. Lord O’Donnell, former Cabinet Secretary and UK Head of Civil Service: "Civil servants were 'mentally' working on Brexit plans, to avoid the Freedom of Information Act." Tony Blair, 2010 – he introduced Freedom of Information Act – but after stepping down, he said in 2010: “The Freedom of Information Act…is a dangerous Act [because] governments need to be able to debate, discuss and decide issues in confidence." So, does it improve trust? I quote you Francis Fukuyama: "Legislators and officials must preserve deliberative space, just as families need to protect their privacy when debating their finances, or how to deal with a wayward child. And they need to be able to do so without donning a straight-jacket of rules specifying how they must talk to each other, and to citizens.” So, you will get a lot of requests which are very odd, to say the least. Civil servants will have to deal with all these requests at taxpayers’ expense. All of this comes at a cost. And if you look at the countries and you look at who uses them, it is not the average man in the street. Of course, the average man or woman in the street uses it some of the time but, mostly, it actually ends up privileging and giving more advantage to those who are better organised. What do I mean?”
“Going to the UK, these are some of the requests that were made: (a) total amount spent on Ferrero Rocher chocolates in UK embassies; (b) how many toilet rolls were used during Tony Blair’s administration. Imagine the civil servants would have to go and calculate that across all government agencies in the 10 years that Tony Blair was Prime Minister; (c) what kind of tea is drunk at the Ministry of Defence? (d) what is John Prescott’s weight? He was the Deputy Prime Minister; (e) registration numbers of all vintage lorries held by local authorities; (f) eligible bachelors in the police force between the ages of 35 and 49 by someone who said that she liked men in uniform; (g) statistics of reported sex with sheep and any other animal in Wales, if possible, since records began. Freedom of information sounds popular. It even sounds sexy. But it basically means anyone can ask for any information, regardless of the reasons why and without having to be responsible as to how they will use it. But the key question for us in Parliament is when we put in a Freedom of Information Act, does it improve governance or does it affect governance? If it can be shown that it improves governance, we should have it. There is no question. But does it? Let me go through the experience of the countries which have put it in. John Lloyd, Australia's Public Service Commissioner said, and I quote: "Ever since they introduced Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), public servants have a culture of 'don’t put it in writing'", because if you put it in writing, it can be FOIA-ed "due to the very pernicious Freedom of Information laws”. And I am quoting him.”
“All I can tell the Member is that I will make two general points: if the facts are accurate – meaning you set out whatever accurately – and the views are expressed based on those facts, it is not within this Bill. But also, as I said just now, we must not assume that all those statements in the past which have referred to a variety of things, as if this Bill has been drafted with those statements or those statements had anticipated this Bill. Quite a few of those statements may well not come within the rubric of this Bill. Anyway, public interest has got to be established, and it does not mean that each time the Government responds, automatically, public interest was involved or had been involved in the past. That could have been made with a number of considerations in mind. But it does not mean that, automatically, the standard for public interest set out in the Bill would have been invoked. I do not know. I have not looked at it but these are sort of commonsensical points. And there was a question on Government transparency and Freedom of Information Act. Ms Irene Quay asked about this and Mr Louis Ng asked about it. This is one of my favourite topics – Freedom of Information Act. I think Mr Louis Ng said that a number of countries, including China, Pakistan, Zimbabwe, they all have a Freedom of Information Act. I would say we should consider and this is a serious issue. Who uses the Freedom of Information Act and what has it been used for? And I am making some serious points here. You first start looking at the requests and I will tell you what sort of requests have been made. You can see some governance issues.”
“Let us say a historian says, "Communists did not intend to conduct armed insurrection in Singapore" and he relies on some documents. He interprets them one way; that is his opinion. But supposing that there is no such document, and he says that there is such a document, and that he manufactured his claim. Then, it is false. I think these situations are fairly clear. But say, he refers to figures in the documents and there are no such figures and he just invented it. That is false, so the Courts will easily be able to deal with all of these. Or say, he gave an interpretation of a document but on oath he subsequently admits that his interpretation of the documents was misleading, and that he had given an untrue characterisation and inaccurate reflection of the documents. In such a situation, of course, the academic's reliance on the underlying documents, based on his own admission, would be false. The remedy in such situations – put up a clarification, for example, that he has admitted that his statements were misleading, an untrue characterisation, inaccurate reflection of the documents. Then, let readers judge for themselves. Ultimately, it depends on an objective interpretation, as I said earlier about the Courts, but that does not preclude challenging conventional wisdom, challenging established thinking. Those are different things. Assoc Prof Walter Theseira asked about the scope of his review of statements that the Government has made. I do not have the precise figures, but he said that there was a small number of cases where the interpretations were based on facts, rather than facts themselves. I have not seen them.”
“Does it make sense for the Government to go and look for 20,000 people and ask them to do things? It does not make sense. It is not practical. The Bill is primarily aimed at tech platforms. So, the tech platforms are to carry the Corrections and push it down to the people who have received the original falsehood. There will be questions on what technology allows and does not allow. That is the primary, in essence, focus of the Bill. And in some cases, the tech platforms could be asked to "take down" and ensure the "take down" applies across the board. It simply does not make sense to go and find and look for thousands of people and individually go to each one of them. It makes sense if there is one creator of falsehoods, deliberately creating and sitting somewhere and pushing out falsehoods, that person can be dealt with. Ms Irene Quay and Dr Intan Mokhtar asked about other legislation and how they apply. Dr Intan Mokhtar also asked about academics and assurance that academics and researchers can continue to enjoy academic freedom. Mr Christopher de Souza asked about plans to assure well-meaning members of society that they would continue to contribute to meaningful civic discussions, and Mr Alex Yam said some of the constituents he has spoken with have asked if the Bill will cover academic research. My colleague, Minister Ong Ye Kung, gave a comprehensive response on academia. I do not think I really have much to add. I think it is clear. On your specific question, Mr Alex Yam, you asked about historians and mentioned a specific example, Operation Coldstore. The Bill does not cover academic opinion but, in the same measure, as Minister Ong Ye Kung said, there is no carve-out for academics either, for statements which are false.”
“There is a whole body of administrative law, principles, and that has to be dealt with – judicial review – in the usual way, and could involve very detailed arguments. Mr Murali Pillai asked about the risk of inconsistency in parallel tracks. I think this is not the only area of the law where that occurs and there are procedures that the Courts can adopt to resolve that. Ms Sylvia Lim and Mr Leon Perera, I think they have conflated Directions with criminal punishments, if I am not wrong. Directions simply require you to put up corrections, or take down the material as appropriate, in an appropriate case. They are not criminal punishments. As I said yesterday, it could appear in your article, "Look, there is a correction required on this because this article contains untruths or inaccuracies. And for the truth, go to such and such a website". And a link will be given. And then the reader is open to read this article, and he is open to read the other article and decide for himself. So, there are no criminal consequences, unless the person refuses to comply with the Directions. Mr Chen Show Mao had suggested that penalties under this Bill are harsh. I would say the existing penalties are comparable. As I said yesterday, the criminal provision under the Bill is actually narrower because it requires both a false statement of fact and for public interest to be impacted. Er Dr Lee Bee Wah and Mr Melvin Yong asked for clarification on what consequences there will be for those who inadvertently forward falsehoods. If you do not know that the content was false, then as I said yesterday, there is no question of criminal punishment. You may receive a Correction from the platform to inform you. Look at it like this. It is a falsehood that has travelled to 20,000 people.”
“It is a completely defensible, open system that places no great power within the Executive and, in that context, I think all the nine WP Members of Parliament's speeches are remarkable for the fact that they do not deal head-on with the point I made, which is that the powers here are narrower than the powers that currently exist. So, the Armageddon that we were threatened with if this Bill comes into law, I am still trying to see the logical flow of that argument. But I will come back to it. Mr Louis Ng spoke about cost and Mr Dennis Tan asked about judicial review applications and costs, and Mr Murali Pillai talked about parallel procedures providing for judicial oversight. Quite a lot of the points I wanted to make about the speeches by the WP Members of Parliament have already been made by Mr Murali Pillai in a very lucid way. Mr Louis Ng's concerns about the cost of appeals, I have already set out in some detail the process and what will happen. But when we talk about judicial review, that is quite a separate exercise. Appeals on question of fact should be fairly straightforward. In fact, in my view, it should be disposed of fairly quickly, but we have provided for three days of free hearing. And after that, for normal fees to be paid to Court and for the Court to have ultimate discretion to decide who should pay the cost. Because if someone carries on and on and on for several days of argument unreasonably, that is something the Court should take into account, for example. Mr Dennis Tan asked about the cost regime for judicial review and an expedited process. Ms Sylvia Lim made a similar point. I think these are very different processes for appeal on truth versus falsehoods versus a judicial review.”
“If it was on the stock exchange, and say, it relates to a bank in Singapore, and such a rumour, then there would be some public interest in going to deal with it, in terms of how stock exchanges and the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) deal with these issues. These are things where immediate Executive action will be necessary. It does not mean that the Ministers will move or act without consideration. The amount of consideration depends on the time that they can take, but it has to be quick. This is one of the reasons why it is different Ministers, because, one day it could deal with Finance, one day it could deal with Health, one day it could deal with the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF), and another day it could deal with the Police. So, the domain experts, Ministers advised by civil servants, will have to decide quickly and open themselves up for challenge, if there is a challenge and it has all got to be done in public, quite apart from questions in Parliament. Other Members, including Mr Christopher de Souza, Mr Cedric Foo, Mr Gan Thiam Poh and Mr Saktiandi Supaat, have mentioned the need for speed. Some Members have suggested some other alternate third party to have the power to decide whether to allow falsehoods to carry on. You have a third party, the Government deals with the consequences often times of the falsehood. So, you then separate the responsibility of dealing with the consequences, from the power to stop the falsehoods in the first place. Dr Chia Shi-Lu made a similar point. I think the Executive exercises a power and makes itself accountable to the Courts and to Parliament.”
“And that is a serious diminution of public confidence and ultimately eroding trust. The third example, a real example, was a false claim that Swedish police had said, "There were 50 'no go' areas in Sweden, filled with illegal immigrants, and these areas were too dangerous for even the police to enter". The Swedish police had said no such thing. The effect was to suggest that the police did not have things under control, that they cannot be relied on to protect society. You can make those comments, but if you want to refer to facts, then you should get your facts right. But if you were to make a comment, "Swedish police do not have things under control" or "Singapore Police do not have things under control", you are welcome to say that. That would not be covered by the Bill. But if you say, by specific reference, that these are "no go" areas, and that is either true or it is not true. Mr Darryl David again spoke about Advisory Council, but I hear his latest remarks, and I think Prof Lim Sun Sun also said something similar. I think Prof Lim's suggestion was Advisory Panel to Minister who makes a final order. My point is simply this. There are many examples of how quickly these things move. Nominated Member of Parliament Mohamed Irshad spoke about what happened in Myanmar. Within, I think 24 hours, armed mobs were on the streets because of a false claim that two Muslims had raped a Buddhist woman. This led to two days of violence, and left people dead. In Indonesia, there was a rumour that a Chinese woman threw items at a mosque and stopped prayers. Within 24 hours, 14 Buddhist temples were burnt and destroyed. Another was the falsehood which Mr Pritam Singh referred to – the cryptocurrency's founder had died in a car crash. Within five hours, it wiped out $4 billion.”
“Mr Pritam Singh also takes issue with clause 4 being non-exhaustive. I had set out the existing legal position in considerable detail in my opening speech. And there are many statutory provisions, including the BA. You have seen the definitions of "public interest". This Bill actually articulates the grounds of public interest with greater specificity and clarity than in earlier laws. And there are very practical reasons for keeping the list non-exhaustive. The SC report states that as falsehoods appear in a broad spectrum of circumstances, if you look at paragraph 538. If we provide a closed list, then people will know precisely what the parameters are, and can work around them. And we talked about foreign actors, other bad people, and the point really is, public interest is a second limb. You have got to prove the falsehoods in the first place. So, there are two gates. And I think once you say it is false, there is really not much argument if it impacts on public interest. And you have got to prove public interest in some way. And the Courts will have the final say on the matter, if challenged. Mr Darryl David has asked for clarity of what would be considered a diminution of public confidence in our institutions. Let me give Members three real-life examples. [Deputy Speaker (Mr Charles Chong) in the Chair] Yesterday, I referred to the Yellow Vest movement trying to erode trust in the police. That would be one example. Secondly, there was a case of a forged letter from Sweden to Ukraine, asking Sweden to ensure the dismissal of a court case in the Swedish courts concerning Ukrainian war crimes. The letter suggested that Sweden was prepared to do so, to make people believe their governments were not above interfering with justice.”
“That is a separate scenario. I do not think the Member is talking about that. Mr Dennis Tan also asked about falsehood in general. He said "diminution of public confidence" is not found elsewhere in the world and will prevent bona fide criticism. I would put this point in the same league as the earlier point and would ask what the Member means by "bona fide criticism" when falsehoods are generated and pushed out by bots, trolls, fake accounts and all the other mechanisms that I spoke about yesterday. What is meant by bona fide criticism? As a lawyer, Mr Dennis Tan will understand what is bona fide criticism. Certainly, this will not be considered by any Court, by anyone reasonable Court, as bona fide criticism. So, this debate, this Bill, I hope it is clear that we are not dealing with bona fide criticisms; we are dealing with falsehoods. Mr Pritam Singh has some points about clause 4(f) on public confidence and cited as an example the recent discussion involving permits that Nas Daily obtained to hold a fan meet in Botanic Gardens. I think because his speech came immediately after Mr Edwin Tong's speech, he may not have had the time to look at the illustrations. And I specifically referred to it in my speech as well yesterday precisely about this incident, and I gave various illustrations. So, I will just refer Mr Pritam Singh to that. But I will also caution generally against taking statements issued before this Bill comes into force and trying to compare and take them as if they come within the rubric of this Bill. Those statements were issued without reference to the terms of this Bill for several years. You should not take those statements and say, "Ah! Therefore, this comes within this Bill." They are different.”
“I think the definition of what constitutes a "statement of fact", I have gone through in some detail and so have others. It has been laid down by the Courts. Some, including Mr Faisal Manap and Assoc Prof Daniel Goh, have asked why do we use the word "misleading". This reflects existing jurisprudence that statements can also be false by reason of having misled through omission. It reflects existing jurisprudence. At the end of the day, whether by omission or by express statement, the Bill deals with material that is false. And I will quote the Court of Appeal which has said the test for distinguishing between "comment" and "statement of fact" is an objective one. And I quote here, "whether an ordinary, reasonable reader on reading the whole article would understand the words as comment[s] or [as] statements of fact". The Courts are equipped to apply the legal test and have regularly done so. The Nominated Members of Parliament, for example, in their Explanatory Note, have said they do not propose amendments to the definition of a "statement of fact". The Bill relies on existing case law. And before the SC, law academics gave evidence about the law, including professors from NUS and the Dean of the Singapore Management University (SMU) Law School. Ms Rahayu Mahzam's question about education, about what is covered and not covered. Yes, of course, that will continue to be done. [Deputy Speaker (Mr Lim Biow Chuan) in the Chair] And Mr Louis Ng's question on satire and comedy. By definition, once it talks about fact, then it excludes satire and comedy. That is how the law operates. Say this is fact and falsehoods, the Act applies to falsehoods, then satire and parody is excluded. I gave some examples yesterday about how parody can be converted and put out as fact.”
“As for the actual points in the Notice of Amendments, I do not think Members want me to repeat the points I made yesterday. So, I will skip that. Then, a number of comments were made on the definition of falsehoods. I think Mr Pritam Singh asked, fact and comment divisions not so clear; false or misleading, in whole or in part, is very wide. Mr Louis Ng talked about satire and comedy. I think Ms Rahayu Mahzam asked about efforts to educate Singaporeans. Mr Dennis Tan talked about "misleading" according to whose standards. If I say something according to my own views, but what if the Minister or Court interprets your meaning differently? Why should I be subject to corrections or takedowns? That, I find, a little surprising. Let us say, Mr Dennis Tan, you put out a statement that three Chinese Police officers raped a Malay girl and the Police are covering it up. And then, you refuse to put a correction on the basis that it is not misleading according to your standards. There have got to be objective standards in these things. And I think, as a lawyer, you will understand that quite easily. Or for that matter, an actual case, Mr Nicholas Lim, that he was not charged because his parents were influential. I think you know who his parents are. And if you continue to insist your statement that his parents were influential and that is why the Police did not take action, I think there must be some objective standards. The law deals with objectivity in all these areas. So, I find this statement particularly troubling. Ms Anthea Ong gave an illustration about an NGO that has evidence from a sexual assault victim, was unwilling to disclose the same details to the authorities. And Mr Chen Show Mao made a similar point as well.”
“This Bill deals with falsehoods, to mitigate the impact and deter those who deliberately peddle in falsehoods, with the specific framework that is different from ISA. Prof Lim Sun Sun agrees with the need for legislation but refers to a "collaborative framework" within the Bill. There will be Codes of Practice for upstream regulation of tech companies. I think I can refer Prof Lim to the SC's findings on the question of regulating tech companies, and it was quite unequivocal. I can give the Member the paragraph references – paragraphs 406, 436, 476, 536. So, the SC looked at the evidence that was presented and it was quite clear that regulation was necessary. International sentiment. If we look at what the UK Digital Secretary Jeremy Wright said, and I quote, "The era of self-regulation for online companies is over. Voluntary actions from industry to tackle online harms have not been applied consistently or gone far enough." And, of course, Mr Zuckerberg himself, one day before this Bill was tabled said, and I quote, "I believe we need a more serious active role for governments and regulators ... I believe we need new regulation in four areas: harmful content, election integrity, privacy and data portability." Assoc Prof Walter Theseira articulated what the three Nominated Members of Parliament accept – the definitions of falsehood and of public interest in the Bill. They accept that the Executive must have the power to act. And they accept that trying to introduce judicial or independent oversight first, risks harm in the event of an imminent threat. And I think Ms Anthea Ong said that the Independent Council proposed by the Nominated Members of Parliament was not meant to intervene with the decision-making process set out in the Bill.”
“The bigger an intermediary is, the more it can be expected to invest in keeping its systems safe for those who use it. This also ensures that regulation does not become a barrier to entry for new entrants, thereby further cementing the dominance of the large incumbents. But it should not be seen as licence for non-compliance. An intermediary that does not currently have the technical features to comply with the Direction, does not automatically have reasonable excuse. If that were so, an intermediary can just deliberately refrain from adopting product features that are needed, so that it does not have to comply with the Directions. And that would subvert the intent of the defence. That is why the Bill spells out these relevant factors. But the Court will look at all the circumstances and decide what would be reasonable. Mr Vikram Nair asked if this Bill will cover past statements. The Bill will come into force hereafter, with relevant subsidiary legislation, on a date to be specified, as is usual. Any statement after the Act, assuming it is passed, comes into force, will be covered. It could also cover future statements that may be made by reference to something said in the past, or statements which repeat past statements. Ms Irene Quay asked about the relationship of this Bill with the Defamation Act and the Internal Security Act (ISA). The Defamation Act deals in the private law sphere, with damage to reputation. For example, if someone says you are corrupt, then if it is not true, you can sue to clear your name. And many people will want to. The Internal Security Act (ISA) deals with threats to national security.”
“Sir, I thank the Members for speaking. Some of the points raised by Members have also been addressed by Minister Ong Ye Kung and Minister Iswaran. Let me try and deal with the questions that have been raised. Mr Vikram Nair and Mr Henry Kwek asked some questions relating to other parts of the Bill that were not covered in the opening speech, either by myself or Senior Minister of State Edwin Tong. These provisions are fairly self-explanatory. But let me take Members briefly through these other provisions. Part 6 of the Bill empowers the Government to direct an intermediary to prevent an inauthentic account from communicating content within Singapore, and interacting with users in Singapore when the stipulated conditions are satisfied. Part 5 of the Bill contains the levers relating to websites that put out falsehoods repeatedly. Such a website can be "declared" by the Minister. A number of consequences will then follow. The website will be de-monetised. The owner or operator of the website will be required to put up a notice warning users that the website has been declared and the website cannot then be promoted using digital ad tools. Mr Henry Kwek asked about the defence of "reasonable excuse" and how it would work in practice. The Directions deal with the impact of falsehoods; they are not punishments. Non-compliance with the Direction, without reasonable excuse, is, however, an offence. Clause 27, in particular, sets out factors that the Court must consider when deciding if the defence is available to an intermediary. These are the state of the art at that point in time, the cost of complying with the Direction relative to the means available to the Internet intermediary, and any other relevant factor. These are really all commonsense factors.”
“Yes. I have got the clarifications I needed, Sir. Thank you.”
“And you believe that that can be done by simply putting some submission to the Court? Is that it, whatever the civil servant submits to the Minister can simply be submitted to the Court?”
“I would ask Mr Perera not to put words in my mouth. When I said "not agree", it may be because he says, "I want to hear what the other side has got to say". So, my point to Mr Perera is: therefore, we can take it, and it will be very simple, can I take it your position is that, definitionally, every single time it is necessary to make a decision, you believe that the Courts can be used to make a decision to break the virality within a matter of hours; every single time, when it is necessary to do so? Is that your Party's position? Is that your position? If it is yes, yes. If it is no, no. That is all. It will be very good to clarify that.”
“Possible, if the judge does nothing else but waits for the applications. That was what I said.”
“Supposing the judge says, "I think I would like to hear the other side, urgent as it is". It has happened. Urgent ex parte applications have been heard on a contested basis. Any of these are possible. The judge could give you ex parte. But he could also ask for contested ex parte. He could ask the other side to turn up quickly. And if he does that, and the other side turns up, and then they say, "We do not have time to file an affidavit but we want to know the basic facts before we can argue. We need until this evening; we need until tomorrow morning." Once you set up a Court process, then, you must allow for the due process. So, my point to you, Mr Leon Perera is, having now heard this explanation, is it your position that definitionally, it is possible, every single time, whenever we want it to be dealt with urgently, that it can be dealt with urgently, in a matter of hours? Is that your position?”
“A number of points here. The first of which is this. Let us take the sequence, the process of these things. First, you got to draft something and file in Court. We are now talking about the SC's recommendation to do something within a matter of hours. You got to draft and file. You got to put aside some time for that. After that, you must find the judge. Let us say in the Member's scenario, we have a High Court Judge who does nothing but sits there 24/7 because it can break out anytime, and will be available as soon as the Government calls. It is technically not impossible. Of course, you can have a judge who does nothing but this, and no other cases. Because if he is hearing a case, he cannot break the case and come and listen to you. He has to go to finish the case for the sitting, until lunch time or until the evening, depending on the scenario. Duty judges hear their cases, too. So, we are saying, if supposing something has happened and I want to stop the communication within the next two hours, do you think it is possible by going to Court? Then, there are further factors which have further levels of uncertainty. You file, you go before a judge and you say, "Look, Judge, it is so urgent that I am not going to serve this on Google, Facebook or whoever, wherever it is spreading. I just need an urgent order, ex parte, and then later on I will serve". Sometimes, the judge may agree but the judge may also disagree. Supposing he disagrees, then it takes a further length of time. The decision-maker, the person who has the facts, might take one view and the responsibility for dealing with that situation also rests with the Executive. Have you not known of instances where within 24 hours, there have been riots and people have been killed?”
“But my fundamental point is, are you sure it is done in a matter of hours? Are you standing here as a party and guaranteeing that, every time it happens, it will be done within a matter of hours? If you say that, we will just leave it as that; if that is your position.”
“Mr Singh, I think let us try and get clarity. The first point is not just a question of resources. Judges have cases. It is not as if there is one judge sitting there, doing nothing else but waiting for the Government to come in and apply. There is a duty judge regularly to hear urgent cases. Week after week, the duty judge changes. Sometimes, it carries on. As I told you, there can be weekends, there can be public holidays, there can be other issues. The simple point is that neither you nor I nor anyone else can guarantee that it can be gotten in a matter of hours. I assume you have practised in this area. But if you have not, I will make that point to you. Second, in terms of service. If it is a known platform and there is an identifiable defendant who is not a rogue party, when you go to the Court and the Court says, "Why have you not served on this party, why are they not before the Court?" What do you say? Okay, let us say we make provisions in urgent matters, we can come and get an interim order in the first place even before service. Assuming we provide for that. Then, what really happens is, each time you just go and get an ex parte order, all that the judge has is what you are giving him. And he confirms that you should get the order. Even then, after you get the order, you are going to break the virality within a matter of hours, as supposed to an immediate order by the Minister? I think you have an insuperable problem there because of the availability of the judges. And if your point is, each time the Government wishes, it goes ex parte because it is urgent, then how is the Court to substantially check other than the fact that the Government puts up an affidavit, explains it and says, "I think it is urgent" and the Court gives it?”
“Mr Singh, that does not quite answer the question. On Recommendation 12 and whether the Executive is mentioned or not, I think we stick to the wordings here because I am also aware of those emails. And it is quite clear what Recommendation 12 says, but I do not want to put you in any sort of embarrassment on that. Let us just deal with the point on hours. I think it is unarguable, prima facie or whatever, the starting point is for you to file and get an attendance before a duty judge. You will accept that that is not always possible in a matter of hours. That is the first point I make. The second point I make is this. If you serve it, and sometimes you will have to, particularly, say you decide to make the platform the defendant, and they turn up, and they say, "No. Before you make a prima facie order, we want to make an argument. We want to be heard". What happens? The Court, are you sure, will each time make a decision within a matter of hours, assuming you can even get the judge? If the judge is in a hearing for the whole day, you get to see him at the end of the day, if he wants to see you, if he is able to see you. It is a simple point, Mr Singh. It is unarguable, is it not, that there will be times you cannot guarantee that if you go down this route, you will always get it within a matter of hours, prima facie or otherwise? That is the only point. I mean you are good enough to accept that, I think we can move on.”
“And that it says "The Government have the powers to swiftly disrupt" and says "This is the way it should be done."”
“The only difference that I see between you and us now is who makes that initial call. And your method does not gel with what the recommendation says. So, maybe, I can hear from the Member.”
“If anyone in this House says that you guarantee that a Court will decide every single time, within a matter of hours, when you need it, you are not telling the truth. And I will say so by looking you in the eye. The Courts will tell you that is not possible. So, let us not use words like "Courts can decide quickly". Of course, they can decide quickly. But, as I said to the Nominated Members of Parliament yesterday, what does that mean? These are qualitative words. We are talking about "hours". I have given concrete examples where things happened within a matter of hours. For private interest, you cannot have any other way other than going to Court. We set up a dedicated set of Courts for the State Courts. We asked them to set up a separate tribunal but that does not mean that an order can be obtained within a matter of hours. We can do the same thing in the High Court. But that does not mean that a Court order can be obtained within a matter of hours. You just think in terms of process. There might be times when there is no defendant and you can try and get an ex-parte, sometimes over the phone but, often, there is a platform where these things are carried, and the platform might want to be heard, Facebook, Google or somebody else. So, I think the WP should try and clarify without using subjective terms and bringing in POHA which is quite different from POFMA, that is, this Bill, together with the SC's recommendations. Is the Member walking back on it? Is he saying he no longer stands by it? And if you stand by it, how does your current position make any sense because you accept that is a serious problem? You accept that something has to be done. The Government must have these powers. It must be broken within a matter of hours.”
“It is not possible for the Member or for me or for anyone else in this House honestly to say that the Courts can do this in a matter of hours. That is just plain wrong. It is not possible. So, let us stick to the SC's recommendation – "in a matter of hours". Four hours, five hours. What if it is a weekend? You know how long it takes to get a duty judge? When are you going to get a duty judge? When the Courts reopen. Sometimes, you can go to his house and see him. But "matter of hours"? What if he is engaged in something else? He can only give you the time that he can and it is possible that the defendant will turn up. You cannot say all the time that it should be ex-parte. Even in ex-parte, there is such a thing as contested ex-parte. If it is a responsible or respectable party, like a platform, you could say, the platform turns up and says, "No, we want to argue this case". Due process means you must allow them to argue. That means you have to set a hearing date. How long do you think that will take? In POHA, the process is as follows: we have set up dedicated Courts but we have not pretended that in POHA it can come within a matter of hours. It may not be possible. But private interest, in general, we think they can go and try, but we hope that it can be done in two days; in sufficiently suitable cases, hopefully a day sometimes. But there will be other times when the judges are not available. That is why this Recommendation 12, which is a critical recommendation, says, "The Government should have the powers to swiftly disrupt the spread and influence of online falsehoods". And it says, "It should be done in a way to achieve the objective of breaking virality by being effective in a matter of hours".”
“Thank you, Sir. Mr Singh, Recommendation 12 opens with "The Government should have the powers to swiftly disrupt the spread and influence of online falsehoods" – "The Government". The Government should have the powers and the objectives should be achieved as follows: provide access, limit or block exposure, disrupt the digital amplification, discredit the sources. And then, it goes to set out these capabilities should be able to apply to all relevant platforms; and it goes on to say, "Legislation will be needed to achieve the above objectives. Such legislation should have the following objectives: measures will need to achieve the objective of breaking virality by being effective in a matter of hours." On the face of it, the recommendation is that the Government should have these powers. The opening words cannot be any clearer: "The Government should have the powers...". Second, equally importantly, let us not argue with qualitative words – "Courts can move fast, no reason why they cannot move fast" and so on. Let us stick to the clear recommendation – "matter of hours". The Member is a lawyer. I have been in practice. Does the Member think that in every case that is necessary, the Court can decide in a matter of hours? The Member knows the process: it would have to be filed, it would have to be served. The defendant may wish to come to Court and say, "I want to argue this" which means due process. How long do you think it will take to get a duty judge? I do not know whether the Member has tried. But over 22 years, I have tried several times. It can take two days. If the duty judge is in a hearing, it can take up to end of the day. This SC would have been mindful of all of that.”
“The Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) responded to 104 fires involving conserved buildings from 2016 to 2018. When existing buildings, including conserved buildings undergo upgrading works, they must comply with the requirements in the prevailing Fire Code which stipulates fire safety requirements for buildings. SCDF regularly reviews the Fire Code to ensure that it keeps up with changes in the built environment and developments in fire safety. The Fire Code was last updated in 2018. The Fire Code has specific provisions to ensure better fire protection for conserved buildings. For example, conserved shophouses with timber flooring are required to install fire-rated floorboards to prevent the spread of fire between floors as well as fire alarms within the premises. SCDF recognises that older buildings, including conserved buildings which have not undergone upgrading works, over time may face higher safety risks as they are then not obliged to comply with the latest Fire Code. The Ministry will be amending the Fire Safety Act later this year to require owners of such buildings to carry out critical fire safety upgrades if assessed to be necessary. The Member also asked what is done to ensure that upgrading works for conserved buildings are properly carried out. In all upgrading works, the appointed registered architects or professional engineers, also known as Qualified Persons are responsible for ensuring compliance with the Fire Code. An independent Registered Inspector will inspect the building when the works are completed to ensure that the fire safety requirements have been met. In addition, SCDF conducts random audits and inspections.”
“Senior Minister of State Edwin Tong will go through the specific provisions. I will now deal with some of the criticisms of this Bill.”
“This clause gives the power to exempt and really will help tech companies. Because where they cannot comply, they can show reasonable reasons why they cannot comply, exemptions can be given. Since they said this and we have been discussing in general how we can help tech companies when they cannot comply, I asked my Ministry to tell the tech companies – that was on Monday because the op ed came out on Saturday – I told my Ministry officials to tell the tech companies, "You do not think this clause is necessary, right? Okay, I am quite happy to remove. I am speaking in Parliament on Tuesday and if I do not get any response before I speak, I will assume that tech companies do not want this clause". Because how do I tell the Members of this Parliament that this is primarily to help tech companies when they themselves say they do not want it? What was the response? It was quite swift. Last night, AIC issued a statement. They said they appreciated Senior Minister Edwin Tong's clarification on the exemption clause and they appreciated the Government's efforts to make POFMA technically feasible for tech companies. That is what they need to see from us. These are not children's games. This is serious business. Tech companies will say many things to try and advocate their position. We have to show them we are fair but also firm, and then they will deal with us in a business-like way. There cannot be and I do not think there is any serious dispute that legislation is necessary. The question is what sort of legislation. This Bill is based on the SC report which explains what outcomes should be achieved. The Bill seeks to achieve those outcomes. We think the setting out in the Bill will best achieve the outcomes the SC had identified.”
“Her view is that the Government, big tech and consumers should come together and work in a tripartite fashion rather than relying on legislation alone. Fair point. I have said on this subject as well as other subjects. Legislation provides a framework. By itself, legislation cannot achieve all the needed objectives. A lot of cooperation is needed. Tech companies are not our enemies. They are our partners. We want them to succeed. We want them to do well in Singapore and as well. And we must work with them to solve problems. But at the same time we need to be quite clear about the dynamics. They are focused on profit. And there is little incentive for them to do things which will affect their profits. In Singapore, they must know, we must make sure they know there is public interest. They can make profit but not at the expense of Singaporeans. And the Protection from Harassment Act (POHA) and POFMA seek to provide that framework. And they know that the Singapore Government cannot be bought. We do not take money from their lobbyists and we mean what we say. They can do business with us honourably. Singapore provides a proper rule of law framework for everyone, but they must also be responsible. Last year's SC proceedings and their dealings with us would have left them in no doubt that they can push back when necessary. Throughout, in good faith, we have had constructive discussions with them. But let me give Members a recent example. On 4 May, last Saturday, the Managing Director of Asia Internet Coalition (AIC) Jeff Paine published an op ed. AIC is a lobby group for tech companies. And his op ed was full of basic errors. One of the points he made, he referred to clause 61, the exemption clause, and said that this was troubling.”
“The recent release of internal EU Commission documents showed that over the last four years, Facebook has pushed back against regulation; consistently said regulation will stifle innovation. To our SC in March last year, they took the same line. "Prescriptive legislation" would make it harder for Facebook to find the right solutions. So, what right solutions have they found? In March this year, one day before we tabled this Bill in Parliament, Mr Zuckerberg said regulation against harmful content is needed, the problem too big for them to handle. That is what we are now doing. Facebook made this concession because it had no choice. In February 2018, a UK parliamentary committee questioned Facebook on whether it had provided user data to Cambridge Analytica, which had used data mining to help political candidates and groups target potential voters. Mr Simon Milner, Facebook's representative, said to the UK parliament Facebook had not provided such user data to Cambridge Analytica, did not disclose that the user data had been taken by Cambridge Analytica, and he knew of it at the time. I questioned Mr Milner about this during the SC hearing. He then conceded he should have given a more frank answer to the UK committee. Agreed that a reasonable person could take the view that he had not been full and frank in his answers, and had misled the UK committee. New Zealand's Prime Minister Ms Jacinda Ardern, has said: "We cannot simply sit back, accept that these platforms just exist and what is said on them is not the responsibility of the place where they are published. It cannot be a case of all profit and no responsibility." I also read Nominated Member Prof Lim Sun Sun's opinion editorial (op ed) on this point.”
“Will they voluntarily change their business models? They have also created a permissive online environment for hate. You saw what happened in New Zealand. Something happened similar just a week ago. Copycat shooting in California in a synagogue where the whole thing was live streamed. Attacks in New Zealand were live streamed. The Chair of the UK Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, Damian Collins said, it was a "terror attack designed for social media", demonstrated why there had to be statutory regulation for social networks. Only now, Facebook has banned white nationalism from its platforms. In the 2016 US Elections, 470 Facebook accounts used by foreign actors reached an estimated 126 million Americans. Facebook was questioned by the US Senate on whether they had plans to ban the purchase of ads using payments made in foreign currency. Facebook could not give a straight answer. Last year, I asked the same question during the SC hearings. And, again, no straight answer. Twitter, two years after the US Election, most of the accounts linked to the foreign disinformation campaign were found to be still active. The recent Indonesian General Election platforms helped disinformation spread, take root faster. In November 2016, Mr Zuckerberg said, "It is a pretty crazy idea" to think that fake news on Facebook had influenced the 2016 US Election. Ten months later, when there was clear evidence of serious foreign interference, he apologised for having being dismissive. In November 2017, Facebook was questioned by the US Senate. They promised to do better but said they would prefer to self-regulate.”
“In Sri Lanka, Facebook’s years of inaction to hate speech is well-documented. Last year, rumours led to ethnic violence, mosques were burnt, people were attacked, a State of Emergency was declared. Facebook users lodged thousands of complaints over hate speech and Facebook did nothing. One post, and I quote, only one of many such posts: "Kill all Muslims, don’t even let an infant of the dogs escape." In the midst of ongoing violence, what was Facebook’s response to this? "We have looked over the post. It doesn’t go against one of our specific community standards." The Sri Lankan Communications Minister highlighted a tweet from this user as well. Last year, in London, Senior Minister of State Edwin Tong questioned the Facebook’s representative on this post. I would like to show the video of that questioning. With your leave, Sir. [A video was shown to hon Members.] Can we rely on self-regulation? Two weeks ago, in Colombo, Sri Lanka, terrorist bombings, more than 200 people killed. The terrorist leader had made videos to gain thousands of followers, called for attacks against other religious groups, led to several previous attacks. But YouTube and Facebook removed the videos only after the Easter bombings. You see the slides of the photos of the victims. So, what do we say to them? "Sorry, we made a mistake"? As Mr Allan said to Edwin Tong, "Sorry, we made a mistake"? Big Tech has continuously refused to take down hate speech, ban groups promoting hate speech. As one American journalist put it: "Facebook’s world, Facebook’s rules." The fact is that the more users, more content on their platforms, the more user attention they can sell to advertisers, and the more they can profit. They are profit-making entities. Ferocious.”
“But social media does the opposite. It is designed to connect people with whom they want to be connected with, usually people they know or like, or who are like-minded. They allow people to cut themselves off from the views and information they do not like. The SC heard testimony from Dr Simon Hegelich and Mr Morteza Shahrezaye, the political data scientists. Dr Hegelich had advised German Chancellor Angela Merkel. They described the use of social media for public discourse as "an enormous misfit in design". On social media, communication is guided by private affinity and emotions. It is designed to be convenient. A world of likes, emoticons, memes and captions. But, as Dr Hegelich put it: "…political discourse should not be convenient. In democracies, politics should be the result of debates, which are often arduous, because a compromise between legitimate interests has to be found." In the aftermath of the 2016 US Election, a group of academics from America’s leading universities gathered to reflect on the problem of fake news. One of their key conclusions was this, and I quote: "Current social media systems provide a fertile ground for the spread of misinformation that is particularly dangerous for political debate in a democratic society." For those who favour politics of polarisation, politics of misinformation over one of cohesion and reason, these conditions are ideal. So, let us move on. Can we expect self-regulation by tech companies? Tech companies play a key role in all of this. They provide the platforms from which falsehoods and other content are spread. They have held themselves out as making the world a better place. Can they be relied upon to self-regulate? The evidence over the years shows clearly, no.”
“In Latin America, you have Andres Sepulveda convicted of rigging elections throughout Latin America in return for payment from clients. He used the cyberspace to spread falsehoods on key domestic issues and policies. Indonesian authorities uncovered one such syndicate, Saracen Cyber Team. Just one. There are so many of them. Next, who is misled by these falsehoods? In a 2018 survey by Ipsos, a global independent market research agency, on Singaporeans, 91% of Singaporean respondents could not correctly identify one or more of five false headlines presented to them. Falsehoods work. They work in a complex manner. They take advantage of the attention spans, mental shortcuts, cognitive biases of reasonable, rational people. So, every day, all of us decide which issues to give our time and attention. A lot of the information we come across, we make quick judgements, based on who it comes from, how aligned it is with what we know and believe. These are the human loopholes that falsehoods seek to exploit. People’s socio-political identities can play a key role in why people believe and share falsehoods. It is consistent with psychological studies on confirmation bias. So, Members can see from all this that in the Digital Age, the conditions supporting a Shared Reality have fundamentally changed. From a main artery sustained by mainstream newspapers, public discourse is fragmenting into millions of social media groups and conversations. Mainstream media was likened by law professor Dr Thio Li-Ann to a public street. On this street, she said, "you might encounter not only friends, but a … variety of people engaged in a wide array of activities." In this system, people are made to see and show civility towards viewpoints they may not otherwise like and choose to see.”
“Roger McNamee, who was an early investor and advisor to Facebook, said this about the 2016 US Elections: "Facebook's algorithms have played a huge role in this election cycle by limiting each member's news feed to 'things they like', which effectively prevents people from seeing posts that contradict their preconceptions. Trolls on both sides have exploited this bug to spread untruths and inflame emotions." Platforms' algorithms have boosted conspiracy theories, false claims to the top of search results, recommendation lists and news feed rankings. By giving them prominence, the falsehoods are made to seem more credible. Ranking does matter. One study found that manipulating search engine results to favour one candidate over another can alter voter preferences by 20%. This spread of falsehoods is also aided by service providers in a growing commercial disinformation industry. Cybersecurity firm TrendMicro gave evidence before the SC of the going rates for tools and services. I have put it in your documents. [Please refer to Annex 3.] It spread falsehoods. One million Instagram "likes" – just pay US$18, you can get one million "likes". One hundred Twitter followers, likes, or retweets, 34 cents. One hundred YouTube subscribers, 66 cents. Make a falsehood appear on a YouTube main page for two minutes, US$621. Make false content appear on legitimate news sites as if it is real, costs a bit more, US$20,000. To use online propaganda to instigate a street protest in the US, US$200,000, but you can actually get a street protest. There are also "hired guns" who spread disinformation for their clients in return for a reward, a market opportunity.”
“They are able to do so because the personal data of each user is harvested by platforms like Facebook. In the US, foreign operatives used US$100,000 to spread Facebook advertisements to 126 million Americans. It is inexpensive, compared with traditional advertising. Almost 2,000 ads used interest-based targeting and, of those, 800 were geographically targeted, including at swing states. Remember, in some swing states, the margin of victory was in the tens of thousands. In the UK, the Vote Leave campaign spent more than £2.7 million on targeted advertisements. Targeted digital advertising was used in these campaigns because it was effective. Study by network theorists showed that when falsehoods are initially aimed at those predisposed to believe them, they spread further. Another troubling aspect of targeted advertising is that it is hidden from public view. Others cannot see the falsehoods being spread, they are unable to step in to correct them. And again, as British journalist, Carole Cadwallader, said in a Ted Talk: "…this entire referendum took place in darkness, because it took place on Facebook. And what happens on Facebook stays on Facebook, because only you see your news feed, and then it vanishes, so it's impossible to research anything. So, we have no idea who saw what ads, what impact they had, what data was used to target these people. Or even who placed the ads, how much money was spent, even what nationality they were." Third, the algorithms. They can play a big role in promoting falsehoods.”
“Once she had built a following, she pushed a divisive set of views on immigration and Mr Trump, especially closer to the 2016 Elections. At one point, she had over 70,000 followers, quoted by dozens of high-profile media outlets, including The Washington Post, the British Broadcasting Corporation and the New York Times. But it turned out to be a fake account created by a foreign troll agency. The Twitter account impersonating the Tennessee Republican Party, also created by the same agency, spread falsehoods: President Obama had admitted he was Muslim; an employee of Clinton’s was killed in a mysterious explosion in Washington and Clinton was involved. At one point, it had over 152,000 followers. The real Tennessee Republican Party account had less than 14,000 followers. So, trolls, bots, can and have been used in Singapore. We have noticed these spikes in activity from inauthentic accounts when we have discussions on various issues of public concern. One example, whenever there is a bilateral issue with Malaysia, these go up. We recently estimated that it went up by 30%. Such activity creates alternate realities. It manipulates perception, creates the impression that there are many voices, shouts down other viewpoints through fake accounts, shifts public opinion, erodes trust and undermines institutions. If Members turn to digital advertising, it is done to sway public opinion used on both sides of the Atlantic. Foreign operatives were using it in a disinformation operation to influence the US Elections. It was also used by the Vote Leave campaign in the UK. These tools allow messages to be micro-targeted with a high degree of precision at specific groups based on a variety of indicators, including people’s fears and prejudices.”
“So, this slide, designed to glorify Russia, undermine confidence in the US Navy. In two days, it was picked up by mainstream outlets in the US and Europe. You can see how it spread. [Please refer to Annex 2.] In less than seven days, cross-posted on dozens of news sites and their social media pages, catered to different countries and demographics. Fox News' version was shared over 27,000 times. The Sun’s version was shared over 10,000 times. Some of the more prominent examples over the last three years. In 2016 Brexit: research suggests that bots were generating up to 20% of Brexit-related tweets in the months leading to the Referendum, including anti-Muslim falsehoods. In the 2016 US Presidential Election, a foreign troll factory conducted a disinformation campaign using 50,000 bot accounts, over 3,800 Twitter accounts and at least 470 fake Facebook accounts. Facebook’s best estimate from 2015 to 2017, approximately 126 million people may have received content from accounts associated with this troll factory. In the 2017 French Presidential Elections, emails from then-candidate Emmanuel Macron’s campaign were hacked and leaked. So, #Macronleaks hashtag was used to guide Twitter users to false claims that the leaked emails showed evidence of illegal activity by Macron. Hashtag was then amplified through a network of trolls and bots and reached 47,000 tweets in less than four hours after the initial tweet. "Coordinated inauthentic behaviour" by fake accounts was also seen in the US' 2018 mid-term elections; 2018 Brazilian Presidential Elections; the US anti-vaccine debate; and in Indonesia. Fake accounts have been used in very sophisticated ways. A Twitter account belonging to one "Jenna Abrams" was created in 2014. This appeared to belong to a young American woman.”
“The SC found "…considerable evidence was given showing how modern digital technology has made the creation and dissemination of falsehoods easier, cheaper, more profitable, transforming it." I will mention three tools: fake accounts; digital advertising; and algorithms used by platforms to rank content. Fake accounts have been described as "foot soldiers" of disinformation. They may be run either by humans known as "trolls", or may be automated, in which case, they are called "bots". Fake social media accounts manufactured to manipulate. Some of them cultivate persuasive online personas, gain followers, both real and fake, and used as fictitious leaders of public opinion, using falsehoods to sway minds, create impressions of public sentiment. Bots are used to artificially amplify falsehoods – megaphone for falsehoods. They draw attention to falsehoods, affirm them and make them appear to be more believable. Digital advertising tools are used to target falsehoods at susceptible segments of the population. Search engine results manipulated so that false articles are prioritised. Online echo chambers are created and exploited. Social media groups and online chats are used to polarise and mobilise people to orchestrate conflict. Falsehoods today travel easily and widely across multiple platforms. In 2017, a news article that a Russian aircraft had managed to electronically disable a US warship was posted on a Russian state-controlled news site. The article used a parody that had been published a few years before and presented it as truth. You can see how it is not just the labels that matter. People can be made to believe that parody is, in fact, true. So, you need to look at the material objectively.”
“So, as William Davies said, "…when trust sinks beneath a certain point, many people may come to view the entire spectacle of politics and public life as a sham…" So, in the digital age, almost anyone can make a falsehood go viral, or run a disinformation campaign. It has happened in Sri Lanka. In India, child abduction rumours spread on WhatsApp – 69 mob attacks, 33 deaths. In Mexico, same child abduction rumours, horrific lynching of two men. This year, in France, child abduction rumours targeting the Roma people led to several violent attacks on the Roma. Harm to public health when falsehoods are spread about healthcare. Financial markets can be affected very quickly. A false tweet that the White House had been bombed led to a massive fall in the stock market. So, examples are innumerable. In every country, this is happening. No one can disagree that this is a serious threat and that it has to be dealt with head on. I will say this to Members of this House on both sides and the Nominated Members of Parliament that even when this happens in Singapore, there will be a deep damage to the institutions which are beyond and above politics. We are seeing this happen before our very eyes in other countries which normally you could have assumed to be stable, much more stable than Singapore, much bigger than Singapore. And if that happens, that will damage society beyond repair. So, there is no benefit to anyone, regardless of any political persuasion. There is no benefit to see this happen because there is no benefit, whether political or otherwise, in seeing this happen. For anyone. What are the tools that such actors use and what is the cost of such tools? Digital technology has given falsehoods a new power.”
“After the terrorist attack in Paris in 2015, a video was posted, described as showing "Moderate Muslims" celebrating the attack. It was actually a video of people celebrating a cricket match victory in Pakistan. But nearly 500,000 views within a few hours. Video was spread again after the terrorist attack in Paris in 2017 with the same false caption. The terror attack at Westminster in London in 2017: it became viral. It is a photograph of a Muslim woman walking past victims. She was on her phone, face hidden from view, was falsely accused of ignoring the victims and treating the attack casually. Later, it was later discovered that the tweet originated from a fake foreign account. When moderate Muslims demonstrated against terrorism in London, a false story was spread that the demonstration was staged. And in April this year, falsehoods were used to turn the Notre Dame fire into an anti-Muslim narrative. A fabricated quote, ascribed to a Muslim US senator saying "they reap what they sow". A video of Notre Dame burning with shouts of "Allahu Akbar" edited over. In Indonesia, a "Muslim Cyber Army" used falsehoods and hate speech to inflame sentiments against gays, Chinese. We have also seen this in Germany, Italy and Brazil, and all have rising populism, no coincidence. The psychological evidence is that mere exposure to conspiracy theories, even if they are dismissed, makes people less likely to accept official information or engage in politics. Conspiracy theories harm trust in institutions overall, not just the specific institutions that they relate to. And, so, people mistrust the very existence of an infrastructure of fact and disengage from public discourse altogether.”