Singapore—It’s always better for people to do their homework before posting anything online, otherwise they open themselves up to all sorts of ridicule, as one Twitter user found out recently.
Early on October 13, Gheistdamme (@RivkaGheist) tweeted the following: “Sue in Michigan will wear an H&M blouse made by a 10 year old in Singapore whose starving family sold them to a textile factory for $180 USD so she can look cute on the 7 o’clock news talking about the Hollywood Elite kiddie porn rings she read about in thecrimsoneagle.geocities.”
Posting a screenshot of the tweet on his Facebook post, mr brown, who is fondly known as Singapore’s ‘blogfather,’ wrote, “Bodoh lady thinks Asia is one big sweat shop country. The only time we have an H&M sweat shop is when the aircon in the H&M retail store breaks down.”
https://www.facebook.com/mrbrownlah/photos/pcb.3338777489505445/3338777426172118/
Moreover, when a commenter tried to set the Twitter user straight, she did not back down, which mr brown screengrabbed, quipping, “And the OP doubles down on her stupidity when someone tries to point out her mistake. Somebody needs a geography lesson, I think. Or maybe needs to own a passport.”
https://www.facebook.com/mrbrownlah/photos/pcb.3338777489505445/3338777419505452/
A commenter had answered @RivkaGheist writing, “not every country in southeast asia is the same country.”
But she dug her heels in, writing that Singapore is “not even remotely free from child labour, as much as their PR would like you to believe otherwise.”
She then claimed in a late tweet that her source for this was a “specific example from an article on child labor practices, not something I pulled out of my a**,” citing an article reportedly from a non-government organization, for which she also posted a screenshot.
For the record, reports from both UNICEF and the ILO (International Labour Organization) have reported that there is no child labour in Singapore.
Singapore is one of the countries included in ILO’s “The effective abolition of child labour.”
The report says, “There is no child labour in Singapore. The majority of Singaporean children and young persons are either in schools or in approved training institutions. This, coupled with the dramatic rise in the per capita income of most Singaporeans, has led to the rapid decline in the number of children working to help earn a living so as to support themselves or their families.”
We can almost see mr brown shaking his head as he wrote, “When someone pointed out her mistake that Singapore doesn’t has (sic) sweat shops, she doubles down on her stupidity.”
Perhaps because commenters called her out on her lack of fact-checking, the poster has since changed her Twitter handle and settings to private.-/TISG