SINGAPORE — The arts community was against the idea of censoring its own performances, while some members of the public felt the Government, and not artists themselves, should be regulating what is appropriate for audiences.

With neither side in agreement over whether a proposal to allow arts practitioners the option of self-classifying certain performances would be beneficial, the Media Development Authority (MDA) has decided to scrap it, putting a dampener on its vision of co-regulation for the sector.

The reversal caps a months-long campaign against the proposal, which included a video released by the arts community featuring prominent artists such as Cultural Medallion winners Goh Lay Kuan, Santha Bhaskar and Ivan Heng, explaining why they rejected the proposal.

Members of the public who took part in the public consultation exercise on the proposed Term Licensing Scheme were also against the idea.

“Specific concerns highlighted included (arts entertainment) organisers being conflicted in their interest to widen the audience base, and liberal values being conveyed under the guise of art,” the MDA said in releasing the summary of responses gathered from the exercise yesterday.

Explaining the decision to drop the proposal, the MDA said arts groups were the “intended key beneficiaries” of the recommendations. “It would not be meaningful to roll out Term Licensing if the majority of arts groups do not find the scheme to be beneficial,” it said.

The authority also said there were expectations from arts groups it could not meet, such as doing away with the “Not Allowed for All Ratings” category in the content classification system.

The exercise — which sought feedback on the scheme as well as other changes to the Public Entertainments and Meetings Act (PEMA) — was held from May 12 to 30. It drew 10 responses — from Arts Engage, a network representing 45 arts groups, former Nominated Member of Parliament and actress Janice Koh, TOUCH Community Services and seven individuals.

With strong reservations expressed by the arts groups towards the proposed scheme, the MDA also met some signatories to Arts Engage’s position paper on the scheme, and other artists at a townhall organised by the network last month.

The idea of a self-classification scheme was floated as far back as 2003 and was reaffirmed in 2010 by the Censorship Review Committee, with the hope of encouraging co-regulation and easing the administrative burden in the arts sector.

Under the proposed scheme, licensees were to be divided into two tiers. Those in Tier 1 can self-classify performances that fall within the General rating, which made up about 90 per cent of the 1,200 arts entertainment licences the MDA issued last year. Tier 2 groups — to be determined by the MDA — can self-classify performances up to Restricted 18, the highest rating.

Self-classification would be done by representatives from the arts groups, who will be trained by the MDA as “content assessors”. Penalties will be imposed in cases of misclassification.

When implementation of the scheme was first announced in March last year, response from the industry was generally positive and some artists had expressed interest to come on board a pilot scheme. But when details of the proposal were released in the public consultation exercise, it drew a strong backlash from arts practitioners.

In its position paper, Arts Engage described it as contrary to the spirit of co-regulation, self-classification and empowerment. It considered the proposed penalty framework problematic as it would lead content assessors to “self-censor” for fear of wrongly implementing the classification codes.

Members of the public, meanwhile, were concerned that allowing arts groups to classify content would lead to “liberalisation of content regulatory standards”. In a letter addressed to MDA chief executive officer Koh Lin-Net, TOUCH Community Services wrote: “We take the position that the proposed move will ultimately result in proliferation of entertainment that is detrimental to society.”

Following feedback from Arts Engage, the MDA was prepared to drop aspects of the proposed scheme, such as removing the concept of the content assessor. However, arts groups were still not keen, the authority said. At the same time, there were issues the MDA held firm against, including the expectation of autonomy in how arts classification guidelines are applied, and removing penalties — except for a revocation of the Term Licence — for breaching classification guidelines.

Ms Koh said: “We appreciate the very useful dialogues we had with Arts Engage, where we identified areas where we could work even better together. However … there were fundamental differences in views which could not be resolved. Hence, it is better not to proceed with the option of the term licensing scheme.”

The MDA will nevertheless proceed with other proposed amendments to PEMA, such as vesting the MDA with investigation powers for arts and entertainment breaches. Currently, the MDA has to report such violations to the police for investigation. The definition of “arts entertainment” will also be amended to include virtual forms transmitted in real time for public exhibition. The proposed amendments will be tabled in Parliament when ready.