Vogue Singapore’s permit shortened for featuring nudity, promoting 'non-traditional families': MCI

SINGAPORE — Fashion magazine Vogue Singapore has been issued a stern warning and its distribution permit duration halved for featuring nudity and promoting "non-traditional families", the Ministry of Communications and Information (MCI) said on Thursday (Oct 13).

In response to TODAY’s queries, MCI said that the magazine had breached Singapore’s content guidelines on four occasions within the past two years.

The magazine’s existing one-year permit was shortened to six months, it added.

In Singapore, magazines are subject to the Newspaper and Printing Presses Act and must hold a permit before publishers are allowed to sell or distribute them.

As part of its permit conditions, Vogue Singapore has to comply with content guidelines, which “includes not undermining prevailing social norms”, MCI said.

Guidelines set out on the Infocomm Media Development Authority’s website state that for general interest lifestyle magazines, depictions of pubic hair, genitalia, buttocks and nipples are not permitted.

Semi-nude models with breasts or genitals covered by “hands, materials or objects” must also not be featured.

Magazines are not allowed to promote sexually permissive lifestyles or “alternative lifestyles”, defined as an “unconventional manner of living atypical of the concept of the traditional family, for example, homosexuality, bisexuality and trans-sexuality”.

MCI said that it revoked Vogue Singapore’s permit as a matter of process.

“Vogue Singapore has re-applied and MCI has issued Vogue Singapore a six-month permit,” it added.

Vogue Singapore was launched here in September 2020 with a website and monthly print publication. It is helmed by editor-in-chief Norman Tan.

TODAY has asked MCI for details of Vogue Singapore’s offending photos and articles, and has sought comment from the magazine’s publisher Media Publishares.