SINGAPORE: From Saturday (Jul 22), the operator of The Online Citizen Asia (TOCA) will not be allowed to receive any benefits, including financial ones, from operating the TOCA website, Facebook page, Twitter account page and LinkedIn page.
The restriction, among others, is a result of the aforementioned TOCA sites being marked as Declared Online Locations (DOL) under the Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act (POFMA).
The move was carried out following “multiple falsehoods” communicated on the online locations, said the Ministry of Communications and Information (MCI) in a release on Friday.
An online location such as a website or webpage is declared as a DOL if it has carried three or more different false statements of fact that are the subject of active POFMA directions.
In addition, at least three of these false statements must have been communicated to the online location in the six-month period prior to the DOL declaration.
MCI said TOCA’s website, Facebook page, Twitter account page and LinkedIn page each met the requirements to be declared as DOLs.
PREVIOUS POFMA ORDERS
In early May, a correction direction was issued to TOCA after it published an online article and social media posts about a 2021 incident in which the police were falsely accused of taunting an elderly woman in Yishun.
The police refuted the allegations and said they attended to the elderly woman to help her find her way home as she appeared to be lost.
Later that same month, another correction direction was issued after TOCA published false statements about the execution of convicted drug trafficker Tangaraju Suppiah.
The article suggested that Tangaraju s/o Suppiah neither had an interpreter nor access to legal counsel during his trial. The Ministry of Home Affairs refuted these claims.
The DOLs will be in effect for two years from Saturday till Jul 21, 2025.
During this period, TOCA’s website and social networking pages – Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn – are each required to carry a notice stating that it has been declared a DOL.
Through the notice, visitors to these pages will be warned that TOCA has a history of communicating falsehoods on these online locations, said MCI.
FINANCIAL IMPLICATIONS
“The DOL does not mean that the online locations need to cease operations, however, they must refrain from deriving any financial benefit from the operation of a DOL,” said MCI.
“POFMA prohibits a person from deriving financial benefits from operating a DOL, thereby preventing operators of DOLs from profiting from the communication of falsehoods”.
Service providers and digital advertising bodies must also ensure that paid content that they include on these online locations are not communicated in Singapore.
Individuals and companies must also not provide financial support to these DOLs as they would “support, help or promote the communication of falsehoods in Singapore”, said MCI.
PREVIOUS DOLs
Four online web pages were previously marked as DOLs. These were the States Times Review’s Facebook page, Singapore States Times’s Facebook page, Alex Tan’s Facebook page and the National Times Singapore’s Facebook page.
These pages were all operated by Alex Tan, who refused to comply with the requirements, said MCI.
As a result, Facebook was required to disable access by users in Singapore to the pages.
THE ONLINE CITIZEN ASIA
The chief editor of The Online Citizen Asia is Terry Xu, who was found guilty last year of defaming Cabinet ministers after approving the publication of a letter that alleged “corruption at the highest echelons”.
In May, he successfully appealed to have a three-week jail term replaced with a fine of S$8,000.
Just this week, Law and Home Affairs Minister K Shanmugam accused TOCA of falsely suggesting he had tipped off a local digital platform AsiaOne and provided information on the ex-driver of former Workers’ Party (WP) member Leon Perera.
“Members of the public are advised to be alert to TOCA’s history of communicating misinformation, and to fact-check information published at these DOLs,” said MCI on Friday.
The operator of the online location may apply to the Minister for Communications and Information to vary or cancel the declaration. If the Minister refuses the application, an appeal can be made to the High Court.