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MDA’s new licensing regime evokes backlash online

SINGAPORE — The Media Development Authority’s (MDA) announcement of a new licensing regime for news websites has evoked a strong backlash in cyberspace, with a torrent of criticism — on various social media platforms such as blogs, Facebook and Twitter — directed at the initiative which takes effect on Saturday.

SINGAPORE — The Media Development Authority’s (MDA) announcement of a new licensing regime for news websites has evoked a strong backlash in cyberspace, with a torrent of criticism — on various social media platforms such as blogs, Facebook and Twitter — directed at the initiative which takes effect on Saturday.

Among other things, the online community took issue with the S$50,000 performance bond which would be imposed on licensed news websites — arguing that this would stunt the growth of not-for-profit sites or even cause them to shut down.

Despite MDA setting out the licensing criteria, some — including bloggers who were worried that they could be affected eventually — also feared the new rules were a prelude of more to come and questioned the absence of a public consultation exercise or a parliamentary debate before the regime was implemented.

On Tuesday, the MDA announced that 10 websites – owned by MediaCorp, Singapore Press Holdings and Yahoo! News Singapore – would be required to apply for individual licence. The criteria for a news site to be licensed are: It has 50,000 unique Singapore visitors each month over a period of two months and publishes an average of at least one article a week on Singapore’s news and current affairs over the same period.

By press time yesterday, MDA’s Facebook post on the new rules - which was put up on the same day of the annoucement - had garnered more than 80 comments, the vast majority of which were critical. Facebook user Rachel Lim Yan Xuan wrote: “This really make us go three steps back in progress and look laughable to the world.”

MDA had explained that the new rules - which come on top of the Class Licence Scheme and the Internet Code of Practice - would place online news sites “on a more consistent regulatory framework with traditional news platforms which are already individually licensed”.

However, some netizens asked for a fuller reasoning. One of them, “Matata Hakuna”, said: “Why has there not been any reason given for this? And how will this benefit the country as a whole?”

Yesterday, the MDA gazetted the changes to the Broadcasting Act to bring the new rules into effect.

Responding to media queries, an MDA spokesman reiterated that the new licensing framework was “not intended to clamp down on Internet freedom”.

He reiterated that it “provides greater clarity on prevailing content standards in the Internet Code of Practice and there is no change in content standards”.

“It is not MDA’s policy intent to place onerous obligations on the licensees. The performance bond of S$50,000 is pegged to that required of niche broadcasters,” the spokesman said. “Should any licensee experience difficulties in meeting their licensing requirements, we welcome them to discuss their concerns with us.”

On Tuesday, Communications and Information Minister Yaacob Ibrahim pointed out that “just a banker’s guarantee” would be required for the bond and no upfront payment was necessary.

Elaborating on what would constitute prohibited content, the MDA spokesman cited the example of an article that posts the ‘Innocence of Muslims’ video - content that would undermine racial and religious harmony here. “In that instance, just as we had issued a notice to Google previously to block the video, we would issue a take-down notice to any site which posts these video links,” he said.

SUBHD: Opposition parties weigh in

The MDA also responded to socio-political website The Online Citizen’s (TOC) claim that its current reach meets the licensing criteria, citing its internal data. “TOC does not currently fall within the online licensing framework. Should MDA determine later that they ought to be individually licensed, they will be notified,” the MDA spokesman said.

On how MDA determines a website’s reach, he said that it uses “a range of data sources including traffic monitoring and consumer surveys”.

He added: “Our assessment is that a site accessed from more than 50,000 monthly unique IP addresses in Singapore has sufficiently high reach to warrant an individual licence.”

The National Solidarity Party (NSP) and the Singapore Democratic Party (SDP) slammed the new rules as “regressive” while Singapore People’s Party chairman Lina Chiam, who is also a Non-Constituency Member of Parliament, questioned why they were not “brought before Parliament to be debated”. Mrs Chiam added: “It is a... major shift in how the Internet is regulated. There are many questions too - how is a news website to be defined? What if many of the hits which a website receives are generated from a bot?”

NSP Secretary-General Hazel Poa said: “One wonders if this rule will also be extended to articles critical of government policy, articles tagged with reader comments that are critical of the government and articles that generally express opinions contrary to prevailing political wisdom.”

SDP Secretary-General Chee Soon Juan argued that the new rules will have the “tendency to breed more fear and conformist behaviour”.

“The Government should realise that efforts to rein in the Internet will not succeed,” he said.

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