Singapore — The Online Citizen’s (TOC) editor-in-chief Terry Xu joined the New Naratif’s managing director PJ Thum to discuss the banning of TOC.
On Tuesday (Sept 14), the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) announced that TOC had repeatedly failed to comply with its legal obligation to declare all sources of funding since around June last year.
As a result, the socio-political website was suspended under the Broadcasting Act. TOC was required to stop posting content on its website and social media channels by 3 pm on Thursday (Sept 16).
Mr Xu took to Facebook to declare that the organisation does not receive foreign funding yet does not wish to “fill up Annex C” on their subscription model.
On Wednesday night, Mr Xu and Dr Thum discussed the ban in a New Naratif live stream on YouTube.
It was explained IMDA looks into the four basic funding sources of media outlets, donors, subscriptions, local advertisers and foreign advertisers.
Mr Xu highlighted that the current system was “intrusive,” wherein IMDA needed to know where the money comes from.
He added that a donation of even a dollar or a cent needed to be declared, including the name and NRIC of the donor.
He then explained that in 2019, TOC received a stern warning for three issues: not identifying a donor, failing to justify its subscription model and foreign advertiser figures not adding up.
The same issue occurred in its 2020 declaration.
We offered to give the full declaration of the donation we receive “on the condition that the IMDA does not quibble with us over the subscription fees anymore, asking us to justify why we collect subscription fees,” said Mr Xu.
Dr Thum also touched on the IMDA and its function.
“Why on earth do we even have the IMDA? Why are they regulating the internet?” he asked.
When asked about the next steps of TOC, Mr Xu went through some possibilities.
“In the first place, the powers of the authority is to simply govern the broadcasting ability of companies, entities, individuals in Singapore. It does not cover the right to broadcast overseas,” he noted.
He will be clarifying with the court if authorities can prevent them from broadcasting from overseas.
He explained that they could start in another country with a different URL; however, once TOC puts up the same content, IMDA can still suspend the content and ban it from the Singapore audience.
Mr Xu admitted that he would earn more as a McDonald’s employee than an editor being persecuted by the government. He said he was an engineer by profession and not a journalist.
Referring to a proposed law, the Foreign Interference (Countermeasures) Bill, introduced in Parliament on Monday (Sept 13), Mr Xu said, “I’m scared! I’m scared sh*tless.”
The law will provide the government with powers to compel Internet and social media service providers to disclose information on users or remove online content to counter foreign attempts to influence domestic politics.
On Sept 1, the High Court awarded Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong a total of S$210,000 in damages for two defamation suits filed over an article published on the TOC website.
The amount is being crowdfunded and is currently at 89 per cent of completion. A total of 1,876 people have donated to the campaign. /TISG