POLICE WILL BE ABLE TO ISSUE DISABLING DIRECTION
On Wednesday, Ms Sun noted that Singapore has laws against the sale or distribution of such material.
“The police take a very serious view of such offences, and have taken firm action against the perpetrators in cases which had come to their attention,” she added.
In the case of the SG Nasi Lemak chat group, four men have been prosecuted in court. They were either administrators or members of the group.
The government has also updated its laws to deal with the online dissemination of such content, Ms Sun said. The Online Criminal Harms Act (OCHA), which was passed in parliament in July, will be “operationalised progressively” from the first quarter of next year, Ms Sun added.
The police will then be able to issue a disabling direction to online platforms, such as Telegram, to prevent non-consensual and illegally obtained sexually explicit material on these platforms from being accessed by Singapore users.
Platforms that do not comply with these directions will be breaking the law, said Ms Sun.
In these instances, the competent authority in charge of administering OCHA can also issue an access blocking order, app removal order or service restriction order to the internet service providers or app stores, to restrict access to the online service provided by the platform, or part of the online service, to prevent the criminal activity and content from being accessed by people in Singapore.
“Online platforms also have a responsibility to proactively curb the spread of harmful online content and to ensure that their services are safe for their users,” Ms Sun added.
The Code of Practice for Online Safety, which took effect on Jul 18, requires designated social media services with significant reach or impact to put in place systems and processes to minimise exposure to harmful content for users in Singapore.
Singapore users can report harmful content to the designated services for appropriate action to be taken.
There are currently six designated services: Facebook, HardwareZone, Instagram, TikTok, X – formerly known as Twitter – and YouTube.
Ms Sun added that the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) will “periodically review the need to designate other social media services with significant reach and impact as necessary”, including Telegram.
“The effectiveness of our enforcement system depends on the responsiveness of the online services. To date, Telegram has not responded to police’s requests to remove access to accounts disseminating sexually explicit materials,” she said.
“However, there has recently been some progress in our engagement with Telegram. We will continue to work with them, and other online platforms, to better protect Singapore users from harmful content.”
Two weeks ago, Law and Home Affairs Minister K Shanmugam said in a written parliamentary response that Telegram has also similarly not responded to the police’s requests to remove suspected scam accounts and posts on the platform.