NUS Law Dean and Tony Tan’s son-in-law falls for fake news online

The Dean of NUS Law Simon Chesterman fell for fake news online, recently. The Oxford-educated professor, who also serves as Secretary-General of the Asian Society of International Law and Editor of the Asian Journal of International Law, is former President and retired PAP politician Tony Tan’s son-in-law.

Earlier this month, on 3 Dec, Chesterman posted a photo of a building with the words “DEPARTMENT OF PLANNING” cramped onto the facade of the building.

Pointing out the irony of a Department of Planning poorly planning the placement of the words on the building’s facade, Chesterman wrote: “Fail to plan, plan to fail. And then there’s this.”

The picture of the Department of Planning building does not depict a real Department of Planning – it is a photoshopped image. Reddit users debunked the authenticity of the picture months ago online:

The picture of the building, without the poorly planned words, is actually a stock image from Shutterstock. The Department of Planning words were photoshopped onto the stock image and appears to be used as a parody motivational poster online:

Days after he posted the picture, Chesterman found out that the picture is fake, after other netizens speculated on his post that the picture may be photoshopped. In a comment on his post that received over 200 reactions, the NUS Law Dean wrote: “Alas of course it’s fake…”