Tan Kin Lian tells content creators to take down “malicious & harmful” contents about him — or else he’ll sue

SINGAPORE: Two-time presidential candidate Tan Kin Lian had a sober message for those who posted content that “deliberately and maliciously insult and defame” him. Remove the content immediately or face a lawsuit, he warned.

In a video on TikTok on Monday (Sept 11), Mr Tan said that he had been a target of content that caused “serious damage” to his reputation over the past few weeks, adding, “Several friends have taken screenshots of these malicious and harmful contents.”

Furthermore, he added that the content creator would also have to pay the legal fees of Mr Tan’s lawyers. “If the creator does not comply with the request, I will take the creator to court, and if I succeed, the damages will be in the tens or hundreds of thousands (of) dollars.”

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Warning

♬ original sound – Tan Kin Lian

“I advise the creators to remove these contents immediately,” he said. “If the contents still remain on the website, I will ask my lawyer to send a letter to the creator with a demand for an apology and an undertaking not to repeat the harmful actions, and for this message to be broadcast to all of their audience.”

The former presidential candidate also said that though some of the content creators were hiding their identities, he plans to locate them nevertheless, and “the damages will be increased according to the trouble that I have taken.“

He added that he does not plan to cause financial troubles to the content creators and advises them to remove the “harmful and malicious content” as soon as possible.

Mr Tan ended the video by saying again that he advises “these creators to act now to stop further damage to my reputation and to avoid the financial penalty they have to face”.

In the election held on Sept 1, Mr Tan, who served as the chief executive officer of insurer NTUC Income between 1977 and 2007, came in third among the three candidates, receiving 13.88 per cent of the votes.

Former Deputy Prime Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam won with 70.4 per cent of votes.

Nevertheless, Mr Tan’s showing up this year was an improvement from his first presidential bid in 2011, when he received only 4.91 per cent of votes. /TISG

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