The 3rd basically calls for more public education towards media literacy after concluding that technical filters are far from foolproof.

The 1st part recommends that the government should conduct a thorough review of its capacity to engage in cyberspace, and its current feedback processes.

It is the 2nd part, regarding online political content including film, which involves suggested changes to laws and regulations.

In fact, I mused, I can see the government saying, "Oh yes, we are adopting most of AIMS' proposals," and by that mean that they would take in the sections dealing with e-engagement, intermediary immunity and promoting media literacy, especially for youth, but at the same time express reservations about most of the suggestions concerning the  deregulation of online political speech. That is, they'd take up the easy parts that call for no real loosening of their grip on dissent, nor measurable milestones.

At that point, the journalist added her own take: Not just on political speech, but they could also be very reluctant to lift the symbolic ban on 100 websites, as recommended by AIMS in their Chapter 3. They will find a way to justify their refusal, she said, by referring to the concerns of the typical Mr & Mrs Tan in the "heartlands" ....

.... Who would know f**k all about the internet, I interjected. (OK, I didn't use quite those words).

 
The mother-in-law

Phyllis Loh (a fictitious character) has been very upset for the past week. "My mother-in-law is moving in," she said. "It's going to totally upset our home life."

What triggered this? How does she know that her mother-in-law is moving in?

"Just the other day, she said she was going down to the Police Post to have the address on her Identity Card changed from her old address to ours."

But when does granny intend to physically move in?

"Oh, she's been staying with us 10 years already," Mrs Loh says. "But changing her IC is a signal that it's OK for her to stay with us. It's a big step we should not take lightly. Should we legitimise it? That's the question."

Anybody who clamours for keeping the symbolic ban on 100 websites would be behaving like Mrs Loh. Vast numbers of Singaporeans, including teenagers, are accessing pornography already. The symbolic ban does nothing except give others a cause to paint Singapore as a moralistic, repressive state in the same basket as Saudi Arabia.

 
What is law for?

As bruited by the question "Should we legitimise it?", social conservatives tend to see law in a way very different from non-conservatives. Failure to understand how they see it leads to a (non-)debate in which both sides never quite engage.

While not all social conservatives are religious, nor vice versa, there is considerable overlap between those adhering to a religion and those with social conservative views. The result is that many (not all) conservatives tend to see law as something akin to religious edicts.

The first and foremost condition is that law must serve a moral purpose, and "moral" in their understanding is often defined in constructivist ways.

Indeed, law should serve a moral purpose, but most of the time, that moral value is justice. Not fidelity, not belief in God, not even honesty. The law does not criminalise telling a lie, unless through doing so, you have created an injustice against another person. Thus, the law is not concerned with the absolute value of lying, but the relational value of harm that you have caused someone else.

Non-conservatives also expect the law to see moral value in freedom, and by that measure, good law should desist in intervening where private choice ought to be respected, e.g. dress codes, pre-marital sex. The principle behind that is that where no relational injustice is present, the law has no business inserting itself. 

On the other hand, conservatives tend to see freedom as leading to chaos, and their conception of good law tends in the other direction -– the restriction of freedom. For them, the abstraction known as "order" looms large as a value.

In short, social conservatives expect the law to uphold what is felt to be socially desirable, that is, to reflect certain positive social values -– "positive" as they see them.

The more important point I want to make is that, like religious edicts, laws, in the eyes of social conservatives, do not have to be practical, so long as they are morally right. Enforceability or side effects [3] are not big questions. Symbolism -– pointing out the right path to the flock -– is much more important.

Our increasingly Christian government is more and more trifling with the law in this manner. Thus the symbolic value of the 100 banned websites, the sweepingly vague and impractical language of the Internet Code of Practice, and not least, choosing to keep Section 377A, the anti-gay section of the Penal Code, even as they promise not to "pro-actively" enforce it.

Singaporeans need to get to grips with the debate: What is Law for? This fundamental question has to be sorted out before we can truly grapple with how much and what kind of regulation the Internet needs.

 
But Mr & Mrs Tan want us to do it this way

But haven't Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and others already signalled through recent speeches that the Films Act and other rules may be relaxed?

"So, we've got to allow political videos but with some safeguards,' Lee said at his National Day Rally speech on 17 August 2008. "An outright ban is no longer sensible."

Vodcasts and podcasts too will be allowed during future general elections, but with caveats.

And that's going to be the problem -– the caveats. Even AIMS has not recommended outright repeal of the Films Act, but suggested three possible half-measures. Chairman of AIMS Cheong Yip Seng, the journalist speaking to me opined, is fully attuned to how far he can go.

Yet, in December 2005, during the saga when Martyn See was under investigation by the police for his documentary "Singapore Rebel" -– with his film and equipment seized -– Lee Kuan Yew had said in an interview with Time magazine, "Well, if you had asked me, I would have said, to hell with it." He was referring to the use of the Films Act to regulate political dissent.

Yes, but Lee Kuan Yew is different, she said. He is confident he can take on all comers and still carry the people.

That's what I feel too. The new generation of ministers doesn't have that confidence. They don't feel secure enough that they will prevail in any open political contest, their claims of being freely elected notwithstanding. They would be a lot more nervous about jettisoning the protective armour that censorship laws provide them.

But that's just it, isn't it? In the long run, these laws will ruin us. Each generation of ministers will be less secure than the last, more dependent on the rigging (oops, I mean the views of the mythic heartlanders, Mr & Mrs Tan) to stay in power than winning an open contest of ideas. But don't we know: Insecure people make the worst leaders? 

© Yawning Bread