Singapore—Rilek1Corner, a Facebook page popular with many members of the Singapore Malay/Muslim community was shut down on December 11. According to the creators of the page, access to the pages has been taken away from the editors and they have also been removed from their roles.
The people behind the page also wrote on December 11 that they received no explanation as to why the page has been “deleted from Facebook without warning.” The page is still accessible, but there have been no new posts since the afternoon of December 11.
The page identifies itself as a news and media website, with contributions crowdsourced from the followers of the page, who are more than 30,000 strong. Its About section says, “ALTERNATIVE MEDIA! 100% NO FILTER! FREE! IN ENGLISH & ENGLISH!”
Posts from Rilek1Corner have been cited in stories by other news websites including AsiaOne, Mothership, Coconuts and this publication, TISG.
However, the team behind Rilek1Corner has acknowledged that it has at times posted content that has not pleased everyone. “Rilek1corner voices issues of the Malay community that are sometimes difficult to accept. We speak from our hearts and do our best to have a dialogue with all our followers.”
https://www.facebook.com/rilekonecorner/posts/1011887579204067?_rdc=2&_rdr
The editors also expressed speculation that “certain powerful groups” have managed to “finally forcing (sic) facebook to filter and delete the voice of the community.”
The believed that their silencing has been to the detriment of the Malay/Muslim community in Singapore.
“Now, Singapore has lost one voice that has issues (sic) of Malay Community and if this decision has no way out, then the whole Malay / Muslim community will suffer due to the blackout of the rilek1corner page.
We always do our best to contribute to the community about the various problems faced by the Malay/Muslim community.
We do our part to help and support the small business of our Malays/Muslim people. We also do charity works at various mosques in Singapore.”
In their final post, the team thanked everyone who had been part of their community, and pledged to remain steadfast in supporting “Malay / Muslim issues” should it be given access to its Facebook page again.
“Thank you to all our loyal fans, followers and partners who helped make our social contribution. If we get our page back, we will continue to do our best to support the Malay /Muslim issues. If Facebook and powerful groups continue to bully us, then we will all lose the voice of a loud Malay child.”
One supporter of the page asked TISG, “With FB silencing and shutting down the Rilek1Corner FB page, where do the Malay/Muslim community go to now to voice out our unhappiness about issues in Singapore?”
“As a Malay/Muslim graduate, I find that the Rilek1Corner page is a relevant alternative media for us Malay/Muslim community. The FB page Rilek1Corner, discusses hard Malay/Muslim issues that are sometimes hard to be accepted,(sic) but I find that these issues need to be discussed.
I’m a great fan of Rilek1Corner as I find that I could (sic) debate with fellow fans on the Rilek1Corner FB page, especially on hard Malay/Muslim issues. The FB page also had their fair share to do charity work at mosques, which I find it very uplifting for the Malay/Muslim community to do more good in the community,” they added.
Rilek1Corner has a website and a Twitter page as well, but their pages have not been updated since July and May, respectively, as it seems that its main activity, at least recently, was done on its Facebook page. -/TISG