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08-06-2013, 05:10 PM
An honorable member of the Coffee Shop Has Just Posted the Following:
MDA wants to expand the Broadcasting Act next year? (http://www.tremeritus.com/2013/06/05/mda-wants-to-expand-the-broadcasting-act-next-year/)
http://images.dmca.com/Badges/dmca_protected_sml_120n.png?ID=f11d7371-0ef1-483b-888a-04e8d2ba2e94
http://www.tremeritus.org/wp-content/themes/WP_010/images/PostDateIcon.png?9d7bd4 June 5th, 2013 | http://www.tremeritus.org/wp-content/themes/WP_010/images/PostAuthorIcon.png?9d7bd4 Author: Contributions (http://www.tremeritus.com/author/contributor/)
http://www.tremeritus.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/huh.jpg?9d7bd4
OMFG, are these jokers for real?
OMFG, are these jokers for real? Get this: the MDA wants to expand the
Broadcast Act. Minister for Communications and Information Yaacob Ibrahim told
reporters yesterday, “We will amend the Broadcasting Act next year, with a view
to ensure that any other sites which are hosted overseas but reporting on
Singapore news, are also brought into the licensing framework.” At the moment,
the Act does not empower the government to take action against any entity that
is based overseas. “But, if they are transmitting news to Singaporeans and
Singapore is their target market, then we will have to do something about it,”
said Dr Yaacob.
Yaacob, did you pause for a moment and think about what you just said? Are
you actually serious? These other websites hosted overseas, people like BBC
News, CNN, Sky News, ABC, Russia Today, Reuters, CNBC, ITN, Fox, France24,
Al-Jazeera etc – yeah those people, you think you are going to make them pay a
bond of $50,000 and they’re going to do whatever you tell them to do, such as
take down a news report about how corrupt the PAP is? As if that is going to
work. Why would they do that? Because you said so? LMFAO.
Let’s look at the BBC News for instance, they have written negative reports
on countries with poor human rights records,like North Korea, Zimbabwe and Burma
all these years. There are plenty of BBC news reports to make the regimes in
these country look utterly corrupt and despicable. What if Robert Mugabe or Kim
Jong Un confronted the BBC and told them to stop writing negative reports of
their countries – what do you think the BBC would do? They would laugh at these
dictators at their attempts to influence the media outside their country and
continue to report the truth from these countries. In fact, Robert Mugabe hates
the BBC so much that he has unceremoniously banned them from Zimbabwe for many
years and during that period when the BBC was banned from Zimbabwe, they
continued to report from neighbouring South Africa whilst still sneaking over
the border, often posing as tourists or businessmen to secretly film conditions
in Zimbabwe and interview Zimbabweans.
Likewise, the BBC is not allowed into North Korea – but they still secretly
enter North Korea and film there anyway and cover stories about North Korea from
their bases South Korea and China. Do you think they care if Kim Jong Un said to
them, “stop writing negative stuff about North Korea! I want you to take down
all those negative stories on the BBC News website about North Korea!” It
doesn’t work like that.
So if it came to that, the MDA could threaten the BBC, “unless you comply
with our laws, you will be banned from Singapore”. The BBC would not cave in to
such demands – they would simply shift their Singaporean operations to
neighbouring Malaysia and report from there, still covering stories from
Singapore. We would then have BBC journalists posing as tourists or businessmen
coming to Singapore and sneakily reporting from Singapore, just like they did in
Zimbabwe after being banned from Zimbabwe.
This boils down to enforcement. Can the MDA (or any other arm of the
Singaporean government) coerce a foreign media organization to behave a certain
way? No. But what if they wrote something that was inaccurate, misleading or
factually incorrect? The fact is there are already libel laws that do cover the
news outlets in the media and these laws should be adequate to cover the
reporting of stories in Singapore by foreign media organizations.
So take for example, if the BBC wrote a story on their news website about the
Singaporean government that is misleading and untrue, then the Singaporean
government will have the right to hold BBC news to account in the UK (where they
are headquartered) and the authorities in the UK will then hear the case the
Singaporean government brings against the BBC. There are formal channels to
address issues like that in the legal channels – which is identical to the one
in Singapore since most of the laws in Singapore were inherited from the UK
anyway, as Singapore is an ex-British colony. If a crime (such as libel) has
been committed, the crime has to be trialed in the country where the crime is
committed, not where the ‘victim’ resides. So it is not like the news reporting
in the media in the UK is not regulated at the moment – it has always been
regulated here in the UK and there are already plenty of laws protecting our
press freedom in the UK at least. We don’t need or want the MDA to tell us here
in London what we can or cannot say about Singapore or anyone and I’d like to
see you try MDA, go on, I dare you. I challenge you to have the guts to try.
If the BBC had a Singaporean entity ‘BBC Singapore’ based in Singapore with
studios producing local content for the local market, then this ‘BBC Singapore’
entity would come under the remit of the MDA and it would have to play by the
local rules. However, the BBC only has a small BBC Worldwide Channels Asia
office in Singapore at 700 Beach Road, #08-08, Singapore 199598. This is not a
production office, rather it is a sales office. According to their website:
“BBC Worldwide, the commercial arm of the BBC, is a fast-growing media and
entertainment company. Our mission is to maximise profits on behalf of the BBC
by creating, acquiring, developing and exploiting media content and media brands
around the world. We are self-funded and return profits to the BBC to be
reinvested in programmes and services to help keep the UK licence fee as low as
possible. ”
Oh yeah, the BBC does a lot more than report the news – they make loads of
entertainment programmes and documentaries like Dr Who, Planet Earth and Top
Gear which BBC Worldwide sells around the world for a lot of profit. This is the
only BBC Worldwide office in all of South East Asia, so they are handling the
BBC’s business (ie. selling their programmes) to networks in Malaysia,
Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand ec. So clearly, given that they are dealing
with TV programmes rather than online news content – their commercial activities
are not directly relevant to the MDA’s Broadcast Act . Really, you’re after the
news team, whilst there are journalists and correspondents all over the world,
the news is all managed centrally in London. So I’d like to see the MDA try to
dictate to the BBC in London as to what they can or cannot report about
Singapore. What are they going to do? What can they do to the BBC?
They may threaten, “We’ll stop buying your BBC programmes! We’ll stop
Singaporeans from watching Top Gear! We’ll close down your BBC Worldwide office
in Singapore if you don’t comply!” To which the BBC would probably reply, “Go
ahead, we don’t care. We’ll just move our BBC Worldwide office in Kuala Lumpur
then.”
Let me know if they succeed – because I’m sure Kim Jong Un and Robert Mugabe
would love to know how you stop the BBC and all these other journalists around
the world from writing negative stories about their country. Yaacob, you didn’t
think this one through, did you? There’s an old saying, engage brain before
mouth. I suggest you try that when you are trying to legislate on the issue of
internet media.
You know whom I blame for this? The 60.14% who voted for this bullshit.
Enough already. Sudah cukup lah! If you know of a family member, relative,
friend or colleague who is part of the 60.14% who voted for the PAP, tell them
it is all their fault that this is happening. You have such total idiots who
have no freaking clue how the media or the internet works making laws about it
and this would’ve been funny if it wasn’t the law. This shit just got real
bitch, so there’s no point in beingpaiseh or polite about the issue – if you
know someone who is amongst the 60.14%, you must take action and engage them
today. As usual, please feel free to leave a comment below.
Stand up for press freedom, defend your freedom of speech and tell the PAP
bastards in white to kindly go fuck themselves with a big durian.
Limpeh Foreign Talent
*The author blogs at limpehft.blogspot.com
Click here to view the whole thread at www.sammyboy.com (http://sammyboy.com/showthread.php?153991-Despite-Outcry-Yaboob-Tightened-Censorship-Further-Broadcasting-Act-to-be-WIDENED!&goto=newpost).
MDA wants to expand the Broadcasting Act next year? (http://www.tremeritus.com/2013/06/05/mda-wants-to-expand-the-broadcasting-act-next-year/)
http://images.dmca.com/Badges/dmca_protected_sml_120n.png?ID=f11d7371-0ef1-483b-888a-04e8d2ba2e94
http://www.tremeritus.org/wp-content/themes/WP_010/images/PostDateIcon.png?9d7bd4 June 5th, 2013 | http://www.tremeritus.org/wp-content/themes/WP_010/images/PostAuthorIcon.png?9d7bd4 Author: Contributions (http://www.tremeritus.com/author/contributor/)
http://www.tremeritus.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/huh.jpg?9d7bd4
OMFG, are these jokers for real?
OMFG, are these jokers for real? Get this: the MDA wants to expand the
Broadcast Act. Minister for Communications and Information Yaacob Ibrahim told
reporters yesterday, “We will amend the Broadcasting Act next year, with a view
to ensure that any other sites which are hosted overseas but reporting on
Singapore news, are also brought into the licensing framework.” At the moment,
the Act does not empower the government to take action against any entity that
is based overseas. “But, if they are transmitting news to Singaporeans and
Singapore is their target market, then we will have to do something about it,”
said Dr Yaacob.
Yaacob, did you pause for a moment and think about what you just said? Are
you actually serious? These other websites hosted overseas, people like BBC
News, CNN, Sky News, ABC, Russia Today, Reuters, CNBC, ITN, Fox, France24,
Al-Jazeera etc – yeah those people, you think you are going to make them pay a
bond of $50,000 and they’re going to do whatever you tell them to do, such as
take down a news report about how corrupt the PAP is? As if that is going to
work. Why would they do that? Because you said so? LMFAO.
Let’s look at the BBC News for instance, they have written negative reports
on countries with poor human rights records,like North Korea, Zimbabwe and Burma
all these years. There are plenty of BBC news reports to make the regimes in
these country look utterly corrupt and despicable. What if Robert Mugabe or Kim
Jong Un confronted the BBC and told them to stop writing negative reports of
their countries – what do you think the BBC would do? They would laugh at these
dictators at their attempts to influence the media outside their country and
continue to report the truth from these countries. In fact, Robert Mugabe hates
the BBC so much that he has unceremoniously banned them from Zimbabwe for many
years and during that period when the BBC was banned from Zimbabwe, they
continued to report from neighbouring South Africa whilst still sneaking over
the border, often posing as tourists or businessmen to secretly film conditions
in Zimbabwe and interview Zimbabweans.
Likewise, the BBC is not allowed into North Korea – but they still secretly
enter North Korea and film there anyway and cover stories about North Korea from
their bases South Korea and China. Do you think they care if Kim Jong Un said to
them, “stop writing negative stuff about North Korea! I want you to take down
all those negative stories on the BBC News website about North Korea!” It
doesn’t work like that.
So if it came to that, the MDA could threaten the BBC, “unless you comply
with our laws, you will be banned from Singapore”. The BBC would not cave in to
such demands – they would simply shift their Singaporean operations to
neighbouring Malaysia and report from there, still covering stories from
Singapore. We would then have BBC journalists posing as tourists or businessmen
coming to Singapore and sneakily reporting from Singapore, just like they did in
Zimbabwe after being banned from Zimbabwe.
This boils down to enforcement. Can the MDA (or any other arm of the
Singaporean government) coerce a foreign media organization to behave a certain
way? No. But what if they wrote something that was inaccurate, misleading or
factually incorrect? The fact is there are already libel laws that do cover the
news outlets in the media and these laws should be adequate to cover the
reporting of stories in Singapore by foreign media organizations.
So take for example, if the BBC wrote a story on their news website about the
Singaporean government that is misleading and untrue, then the Singaporean
government will have the right to hold BBC news to account in the UK (where they
are headquartered) and the authorities in the UK will then hear the case the
Singaporean government brings against the BBC. There are formal channels to
address issues like that in the legal channels – which is identical to the one
in Singapore since most of the laws in Singapore were inherited from the UK
anyway, as Singapore is an ex-British colony. If a crime (such as libel) has
been committed, the crime has to be trialed in the country where the crime is
committed, not where the ‘victim’ resides. So it is not like the news reporting
in the media in the UK is not regulated at the moment – it has always been
regulated here in the UK and there are already plenty of laws protecting our
press freedom in the UK at least. We don’t need or want the MDA to tell us here
in London what we can or cannot say about Singapore or anyone and I’d like to
see you try MDA, go on, I dare you. I challenge you to have the guts to try.
If the BBC had a Singaporean entity ‘BBC Singapore’ based in Singapore with
studios producing local content for the local market, then this ‘BBC Singapore’
entity would come under the remit of the MDA and it would have to play by the
local rules. However, the BBC only has a small BBC Worldwide Channels Asia
office in Singapore at 700 Beach Road, #08-08, Singapore 199598. This is not a
production office, rather it is a sales office. According to their website:
“BBC Worldwide, the commercial arm of the BBC, is a fast-growing media and
entertainment company. Our mission is to maximise profits on behalf of the BBC
by creating, acquiring, developing and exploiting media content and media brands
around the world. We are self-funded and return profits to the BBC to be
reinvested in programmes and services to help keep the UK licence fee as low as
possible. ”
Oh yeah, the BBC does a lot more than report the news – they make loads of
entertainment programmes and documentaries like Dr Who, Planet Earth and Top
Gear which BBC Worldwide sells around the world for a lot of profit. This is the
only BBC Worldwide office in all of South East Asia, so they are handling the
BBC’s business (ie. selling their programmes) to networks in Malaysia,
Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand ec. So clearly, given that they are dealing
with TV programmes rather than online news content – their commercial activities
are not directly relevant to the MDA’s Broadcast Act . Really, you’re after the
news team, whilst there are journalists and correspondents all over the world,
the news is all managed centrally in London. So I’d like to see the MDA try to
dictate to the BBC in London as to what they can or cannot report about
Singapore. What are they going to do? What can they do to the BBC?
They may threaten, “We’ll stop buying your BBC programmes! We’ll stop
Singaporeans from watching Top Gear! We’ll close down your BBC Worldwide office
in Singapore if you don’t comply!” To which the BBC would probably reply, “Go
ahead, we don’t care. We’ll just move our BBC Worldwide office in Kuala Lumpur
then.”
Let me know if they succeed – because I’m sure Kim Jong Un and Robert Mugabe
would love to know how you stop the BBC and all these other journalists around
the world from writing negative stories about their country. Yaacob, you didn’t
think this one through, did you? There’s an old saying, engage brain before
mouth. I suggest you try that when you are trying to legislate on the issue of
internet media.
You know whom I blame for this? The 60.14% who voted for this bullshit.
Enough already. Sudah cukup lah! If you know of a family member, relative,
friend or colleague who is part of the 60.14% who voted for the PAP, tell them
it is all their fault that this is happening. You have such total idiots who
have no freaking clue how the media or the internet works making laws about it
and this would’ve been funny if it wasn’t the law. This shit just got real
bitch, so there’s no point in beingpaiseh or polite about the issue – if you
know someone who is amongst the 60.14%, you must take action and engage them
today. As usual, please feel free to leave a comment below.
Stand up for press freedom, defend your freedom of speech and tell the PAP
bastards in white to kindly go fuck themselves with a big durian.
Limpeh Foreign Talent
*The author blogs at limpehft.blogspot.com
Click here to view the whole thread at www.sammyboy.com (http://sammyboy.com/showthread.php?153991-Despite-Outcry-Yaboob-Tightened-Censorship-Further-Broadcasting-Act-to-be-WIDENED!&goto=newpost).