When I saw the page being slow to load and the video repeatedly trying to play, refresh, play, try to play a different way (trying unsuccessfully to circumvent my autoplay blocker), I just disabled javascript. Page loads instantly and the content is right there with no visual clutter.
apparently, one of the crimes Amos Yee was convicted of in Singapore involved making disparaging remarks about both Muslims and Christians. and that sort of speech can actually be a crime in Singapore (as it can in the EU).
so, after the US granted him asylum, some in the SG government noted that there are plenty of other people in the world who are making these kinds of illegal "hate speech" statements who ought to also be granted asylum in the US.
as an American, i don't always know what to make of this. free speech means different things in different democracies. the US definition of free speech rights is not the only game in town, or even the best game in town (?).
Singapore and Malaysia have a history of quite significant race riots during the 1960s - some of my family members (who weren't rioters) ended up on the wrong end of a tear gas cannon in Kuala Lumpur during that time. It's not entirely surprising, given Singapore's rather paternalistic political philosophy, that the government feels that strong racial/ethnic vilification laws are an appropriate way of responding to the threat of public disorder.
I'm not convinced the Singaporean approach is consistent with the freedom of speech and in particular freedom of political communication rights that I value so much, but I can certainly understand how they got to where they are.
While I agree with your assessment, one could argue that the restriction of hateful or disparaging speech creates incorrect and harmful stereotypes that can lead to harm, whether it be in the form of street violence or democratic demagoguery.
And one could then extrapolate that such permissiveness in speech, even if it directly or indirectly leads to harm, could spill over into damage and instability to society as a whole, particularly to those who were neither a part of the class of those using hateful speech, nor those who were on the receiving end.
To me, it appears to be a reasonable tradeoff. Such like how in America the second amendment permits private firearm ownership, but federal law justifiably bans private ownership of automatic weapons, military grade explosives, and so on.
> as an American, i don't always know what to make of this. free speech means different things in different democracies. the US definition of free speech rights is not the only game in town, or even the best game in town (?).
There isn't anything to think of it in that sense. Other nations / cultures are free to establish whatever they decide are their rules around speech and so to is the US. There isn't more to it than that: the US is one of the strongest defenders when it comes to speech and has been for centuries.
I can say things about Trump any time I please (the Internet is of course overflowing with the nastiest possible things directed at Trump, every insult possible), that would get people arrested in the majority of nations on the planet if directed at their leader/s. That principle has made the US stronger rather than weaker. If your 'democracy' is so fragile that it can't allow for an insult toward its leadership, well, good luck, you're not going to last long.
In the US you can create rap videos, pretend-murdering the President. You can create fantasy documentaries simulating murdering the President. I find those things obnoxious and I'm glad they're protected speech, they're of no threat to me or the President. I'll take that over prison for insulting the king every day of the week.
I totally agree with the point you're making but I do want to make it clear this is also (mostly) the case all over the "western world", for instance. (it varies slightly country-by-country.)
> I find those things obnoxious and I'm glad they're protected speech, they're of no threat to me or the President. I'll take that over prison for insulting the king every day of the week.
I think you're talking about something different than I'm talking about.
I was talking about saying hateful or insulting things about other people in society, not politicians and public figures.
Even to me it's clear that public figures in the US should have to bear a lot of criticism and ridicule in the name of preserving a free and open debate about political topics.
But, OTOH, even democracies like France make certain kinds of offensive, bigoted or anti-Muslim speech prosecutable crimes. That was the difference I was trying to focus on.
As an American, it's clear to me that the freedom to criticize, ridicule, condemn the government, politicians and other public figures is critical to maintaining a democratic process. But, at the same time, it's not necessarily as clear to me that being able to insult my fellow citizen's religion or ethnicity is. In other words, I'm not prepared to say that France is not a true democracy because of that.
Singapore's philosophy of governance is the same as the PRC's, just with velvet gloves on. People look the other way because they've been able to keep the standard of living up, but if there's ever a sustained economic downtown and loud discontent with the PAP, the fiction will be disposed of quickly and we'll find out how much of a democracy it really is.
SG makes me wonder about my personal convictions regarding liberal democracy. I still personally believe liberal democracy is best for those of us in the West. Then again, we are hypocrites ourselves from funding Saudi Arabia to electing Trump based on promises of draconian anti-liberalism, so I'm not sure how well we can make the argument ourselves.
[0] I really hope this need not be said, but I mean liberalism not as in left politics, but liberalism as in liberal democracy.
i've watched his videos, his criticism of Lee Kuan Yew very much seemed to miss the point. However, I'm glad we gave him asylum, he may be an ass, but being an ass by voicing your opinions alone should not be criminalized.
The Singaporean libel laws are simply a tool used to maintain the one party state. The Lee family are now essentially royalty, and hence he committed lèse majesté.
I'm also a "scumbag Communist". It is thanks to the consideration of Communists and Socialists that today we have reasonable working hours, many labour laws arguably a lot of modern feminist thought.
Just registered to say that we're getting more and more off-topic postings on this forum. This has nothing to do with hacking or tech. This is just politics, and the source is "fake news" CNN, no less.
Please don't let this forum turn into another reddit. Some of us specifically come here to read informed opinions, interesting topics, and avoid that social media crowd that has plagued reddit after digg died.
Not very much of a throwaway Mr.Multi-Year HN Member :P
But yeah, if your going to make shitposting, throwaway alts with no investment or risk to put your "valuable" opinion out there, you deserve a downvote. This is not Reddit, we can't quarantine throwaways to a particular subreddit.
Be part of the community and help shape it. Post comments and submit posts you'd like to see. Flag submissions you think are not appropriate for HN. Downvote and flag inappropriate comments. Upvote those you think are worthwhile. The forum reflects the participation of the community.
I worked in Singapore last April, a wonderful city/country. I can't speak to how much 'freedom' there is in Singapore, but I would go back to work there in a heartbeat if another good work opportunity occurs.
I noticed no poverty, everyone seemed busy and industrious. Anyway, I loved it there.
I've been to Singapore once and find it to be a beautiful city/state. That being said, as an American, I do find some of the policies a bit disconcerting as it reminds me of one of my favorite dystopian books, 1984.
* Singapore is a 1 party system that has been controlled by the same family (the lee family) since what, the 1920s? It isn't a democracy when there is one party, it is a monarchy, just call a spade a spade. It seems to work for them, but they're simply fooling themselves calling it that.
* They very much censor media / free speech. If they didn't, this article wouldn't be news.
* Littering or any petty theft can result in a caning, which depending on the severity, is split up over two days. This is to keep the punished from bleeding to death (seriously).
* Only the government elite can afford to drive vehicles. This is due to the taxes and registrations for even a 20 year old car being around 100,000 local currency. They force the public to use transit.
* They require iris scans of every citizen and permanent resident (as of Jan 2016)
on and on. Sure it is great and there is no crime and the economy looks great, but it bothers me the lack of freedom to innovate, to do something different, to be wrong. I can't quite place it, but never felt comfortable there even if I'm safer in Singapore than I am here in Chicago where I currently type from.
There's a great deal of misinformation and wrong-headed insinuation in this comment.
>People love to talk about how bad Duerte is in the Philippines (he is), but in Singapore, 18oz of marijuana gets you a mandatory death penalty
There's a great deal of difference between endorsing extra-legal killings (Duerte) and having laws with extremely harsh punishment (Singapore). The reason for Singapore's harsh drug laws is that, at least up to 1-2 decades ago, it was a major transport/business hub in the region of significant drug trafficking. The overtly harsh policy was meant to fend off any chance of Singapore becoming any sort of drug trafficking hub.
>Singapore is a 1 party system that has been controlled by the same family (the lee family) since what, the 1920s?
Lee Kuan Yew took office as Prime Minister in 1959. Also, this notion that the country has been "controlled" by the same family also needs to be put into context - Lee Kuan Yew and Lee Hsien Loong have been two out of the three Prime Ministers in Singapore's short history as a nation. Many members of the extended Lee family hold prominent positions in the private sector and government-linked corporations. So does the family hold a lot of influence? Highly likely. But is it "controlled" by the family? I'd like to see more evidence of that.
>there is a $700 fine if you happen to spit it on the street
Which is akin to a littering fine.
>They very much censor media / free speech. If they didn't, this article wouldn't be news.
Do they, though? There are 4 broad classes of "censorship" you could talk about:
1) Yes, there are strong laws against inflammatory statements relating to race and religion. These are significant, do curtail freedom of speech, and should be challenged or at least debated. Unfortunately, Amos Yee ran afoul of this. This is the only reason he's in trouble.
2) There is a requirement for websites having viewership above 50,000 a month to register as a "news organization"[1]. I personally strongly disagree with this, but also this has to date never been used to curtail speech. (Note: I'm not a fan of the "but this law/policy hasn't been abused yet" as a defense for a bad law/policy. I'm just stating the fact that it hasn't.)
3) Outright incitation of violence. I'm not sure how this varies across different countries/states, but I don't think this uniquely Singaporean.
4) Libel/Slander. These laws are standard. Yes, the Lee family has gone after opposition members who make factually false attacks.
But nested in the claim that "free speech is censored" is the insinuation that people cannot criticize government officials and policy. There is almost nothing further from the truth. In fact, Singaporeans are regularly self-deprecating how much they complain and rag on the government for bad policies. There is nearly no curtailment of the freedom to criticize, attack or badmouth policy, government or government officials (up to libel and slander).
There is also no illusion about the biases of media Singaporeans consume. Everybody in Singapore grows up knowing that the major news outlets have a pro-government bias, being closely linked to people in government. Everybody in Singapore grows up hearing the cliche that the history lessons are "government propaganda".
Singaporeans are among the most internet-savvy country-population in the world[2][3]. The Internet in Singapore, barring a laughable "symbolic list of 100 websites blocked"[3] is unfiltered. People who want to find alternative views, who want to organize against policy, can.
>Littering or any petty theft can result in a caning, which depending on the severity, is split up over two days. This is to keep the punished from bleeding to death (seriously).
Littering only results in fines. Vandalism can and has resulted in caning. No doubt, caning (especially in the prison form) is harsh...
In a way I agree with the transport choice. Gas guzzling cars are a terrible choice for moving people around. It does fund a pretty massive industry of mechanics, dealers, gas stations etc but for a small dense population like Singapore it makes total sense to discourage cars.
40 comments
[ 5.7 ms ] story [ 94.4 ms ] threadMaybe link to a better page instead?
On another note, it should be noted the US does not have a perfect track record for providing asylum to those who deserve it[2].
1-https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/mar/25/singapore-te...
2-https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/03/opinion/sunday/locked-up-...
so, after the US granted him asylum, some in the SG government noted that there are plenty of other people in the world who are making these kinds of illegal "hate speech" statements who ought to also be granted asylum in the US.
as an American, i don't always know what to make of this. free speech means different things in different democracies. the US definition of free speech rights is not the only game in town, or even the best game in town (?).
fascinating.
I'm not convinced the Singaporean approach is consistent with the freedom of speech and in particular freedom of political communication rights that I value so much, but I can certainly understand how they got to where they are.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1964_race_riots_in_Singapore https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1969_race_riots_of_Singapore https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/13_May_Incident
And one could then extrapolate that such permissiveness in speech, even if it directly or indirectly leads to harm, could spill over into damage and instability to society as a whole, particularly to those who were neither a part of the class of those using hateful speech, nor those who were on the receiving end.
To me, it appears to be a reasonable tradeoff. Such like how in America the second amendment permits private firearm ownership, but federal law justifiably bans private ownership of automatic weapons, military grade explosives, and so on.
There isn't anything to think of it in that sense. Other nations / cultures are free to establish whatever they decide are their rules around speech and so to is the US. There isn't more to it than that: the US is one of the strongest defenders when it comes to speech and has been for centuries.
I can say things about Trump any time I please (the Internet is of course overflowing with the nastiest possible things directed at Trump, every insult possible), that would get people arrested in the majority of nations on the planet if directed at their leader/s. That principle has made the US stronger rather than weaker. If your 'democracy' is so fragile that it can't allow for an insult toward its leadership, well, good luck, you're not going to last long.
In the US you can create rap videos, pretend-murdering the President. You can create fantasy documentaries simulating murdering the President. I find those things obnoxious and I'm glad they're protected speech, they're of no threat to me or the President. I'll take that over prison for insulting the king every day of the week.
I think you're talking about something different than I'm talking about.
I was talking about saying hateful or insulting things about other people in society, not politicians and public figures.
Even to me it's clear that public figures in the US should have to bear a lot of criticism and ridicule in the name of preserving a free and open debate about political topics.
But, OTOH, even democracies like France make certain kinds of offensive, bigoted or anti-Muslim speech prosecutable crimes. That was the difference I was trying to focus on.
As an American, it's clear to me that the freedom to criticize, ridicule, condemn the government, politicians and other public figures is critical to maintaining a democratic process. But, at the same time, it's not necessarily as clear to me that being able to insult my fellow citizen's religion or ethnicity is. In other words, I'm not prepared to say that France is not a true democracy because of that.
[0] I really hope this need not be said, but I mean liberalism not as in left politics, but liberalism as in liberal democracy.
That's a great summary.
Please don't let this forum turn into another reddit. Some of us specifically come here to read informed opinions, interesting topics, and avoid that social media crowd that has plagued reddit after digg died.
that is very "Reddit" like behaviour.
But yeah, if your going to make shitposting, throwaway alts with no investment or risk to put your "valuable" opinion out there, you deserve a downvote. This is not Reddit, we can't quarantine throwaways to a particular subreddit.
Speaking of search: good way to avoid much of what you don't think is "tech" or on topic.
I noticed no poverty, everyone seemed busy and industrious. Anyway, I loved it there.
There are poor people and it isn't a crime to be poor.
But I don't think the question matters. Prison could be relative heaven and you'd still be denyng the basic human right to liberty.
* People love to talk about how bad Duerte is in the Philippines (he is), but in Singapore, 18oz of marijuana gets you a mandatory death penalty: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misuse_of_Drugs_Act_(Singapore...
* Singapore is a 1 party system that has been controlled by the same family (the lee family) since what, the 1920s? It isn't a democracy when there is one party, it is a monarchy, just call a spade a spade. It seems to work for them, but they're simply fooling themselves calling it that.
* You can not legally import chewing gum into Singapore and there is a $700 fine if you happen to spit it on the street: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chewing_gum_ban_in_Singapore
* They very much censor media / free speech. If they didn't, this article wouldn't be news.
* Littering or any petty theft can result in a caning, which depending on the severity, is split up over two days. This is to keep the punished from bleeding to death (seriously).
* Only the government elite can afford to drive vehicles. This is due to the taxes and registrations for even a 20 year old car being around 100,000 local currency. They force the public to use transit.
* They require iris scans of every citizen and permanent resident (as of Jan 2016)
on and on. Sure it is great and there is no crime and the economy looks great, but it bothers me the lack of freedom to innovate, to do something different, to be wrong. I can't quite place it, but never felt comfortable there even if I'm safer in Singapore than I am here in Chicago where I currently type from.
Not to detract from the other points, those are indeed super disturbing.
>People love to talk about how bad Duerte is in the Philippines (he is), but in Singapore, 18oz of marijuana gets you a mandatory death penalty
There's a great deal of difference between endorsing extra-legal killings (Duerte) and having laws with extremely harsh punishment (Singapore). The reason for Singapore's harsh drug laws is that, at least up to 1-2 decades ago, it was a major transport/business hub in the region of significant drug trafficking. The overtly harsh policy was meant to fend off any chance of Singapore becoming any sort of drug trafficking hub.
>Singapore is a 1 party system that has been controlled by the same family (the lee family) since what, the 1920s?
Lee Kuan Yew took office as Prime Minister in 1959. Also, this notion that the country has been "controlled" by the same family also needs to be put into context - Lee Kuan Yew and Lee Hsien Loong have been two out of the three Prime Ministers in Singapore's short history as a nation. Many members of the extended Lee family hold prominent positions in the private sector and government-linked corporations. So does the family hold a lot of influence? Highly likely. But is it "controlled" by the family? I'd like to see more evidence of that.
>there is a $700 fine if you happen to spit it on the street Which is akin to a littering fine.
>They very much censor media / free speech. If they didn't, this article wouldn't be news. Do they, though? There are 4 broad classes of "censorship" you could talk about:
1) Yes, there are strong laws against inflammatory statements relating to race and religion. These are significant, do curtail freedom of speech, and should be challenged or at least debated. Unfortunately, Amos Yee ran afoul of this. This is the only reason he's in trouble.
2) There is a requirement for websites having viewership above 50,000 a month to register as a "news organization"[1]. I personally strongly disagree with this, but also this has to date never been used to curtail speech. (Note: I'm not a fan of the "but this law/policy hasn't been abused yet" as a defense for a bad law/policy. I'm just stating the fact that it hasn't.)
3) Outright incitation of violence. I'm not sure how this varies across different countries/states, but I don't think this uniquely Singaporean.
4) Libel/Slander. These laws are standard. Yes, the Lee family has gone after opposition members who make factually false attacks.
But nested in the claim that "free speech is censored" is the insinuation that people cannot criticize government officials and policy. There is almost nothing further from the truth. In fact, Singaporeans are regularly self-deprecating how much they complain and rag on the government for bad policies. There is nearly no curtailment of the freedom to criticize, attack or badmouth policy, government or government officials (up to libel and slander).
There is also no illusion about the biases of media Singaporeans consume. Everybody in Singapore grows up knowing that the major news outlets have a pro-government bias, being closely linked to people in government. Everybody in Singapore grows up hearing the cliche that the history lessons are "government propaganda".
Singaporeans are among the most internet-savvy country-population in the world[2][3]. The Internet in Singapore, barring a laughable "symbolic list of 100 websites blocked"[3] is unfiltered. People who want to find alternative views, who want to organize against policy, can.
>Littering or any petty theft can result in a caning, which depending on the severity, is split up over two days. This is to keep the punished from bleeding to death (seriously). Littering only results in fines. Vandalism can and has resulted in caning. No doubt, caning (especially in the prison form) is harsh...