Singapore—A woman by the name of Elouise Quek Li Bin posted a series of tweets on Wednesday (Nov 4) saying that she regretted having worked toward having the sponsors and business partners of controversial blogger Wendy Cheng, more popularly known as Xiaxue, withdraw their support from her.
Ms Quek wrote that last July, she not only posted allegations against the blogger on social media, but also circulated a document and folder containing these allegations “extensively to the public while encouraging the public to send this document and folder to Xiaxue’s sponsors and business partners in a bid” to have them stop working with her.
https://twitter.com/elouease/status/1323855185140047872
Writing that she now understands and realises “that the allegations have caused Xiaxue to suffer financial losses,” she added, “I regret this.”
Ms Quek also tweeted that she “did a mediation with Xiaxue and had the opportunity to hear her views” and that she accepted “that some of my posts were untrue because they were based on posts that were selectively taken out of context.”
https://twitter.com/elouease/status/1323855188956831745
She also admitted and acknowledged that while it was within her rights to post opinions about the blogger’s context, she should not have launched the campaign to get her sponsors to withdraw support and partnerships.
“I am sorry that my conduct has caused Xiaxue distress, loss, and damage. I also retract all the allegations and statements I have made about Xiaxue, and promise not to make any false, untrue, or insulting allegations/statements about Xiaxue in future. I also promise not to contact brands and businesses with a view of getting them to demonetise Xiaxue,” wrote Ms Quek.
https://twitter.com/elouease/status/1323855194745044992
In late September, Ms Quek tweeted that Xiaxue had filed an Expedited Protection Order and a Stop Publication Order against her and that she had sought legal help and was being represented pro bono by the firm of noted lawyer Eugene Thuraisingam.
Xiaxue had made the news in July for writing an Instagram story about Workers’ Party politician Raeesah Khan that said: “Oops guess it wasn’t a good idea to stir up racist sentiments was it? I’m not a fan of the lack of freedom of speech we have in Sg, but I love it that whether you post woke or anti-woke comments, the gov’t is gonna come after you all the same…. stop fielding radical feminists/leftist as candidates ffs we don’t need their poison infecting our politics.”
Two police reports were filed against Ms Khan for comments she made online in 2018 and this year concerning race and religion. Ms Khan, now a Member of Parliament, has since apologised publicly more than once and was given a stern warning by the police on Sept 17.
On the same day, the police said they would not be taking action against Xiaxue.
Some people who were unhappy with Xiaxue’s IG story about Ms Khan called for a boycott of the blogger. This led to the hashtag #PunishXiaxue to trend and there were calls for companies to drop her as an endorser. A number of them did.
A July 10 tweet from Ms Quek, which has since been deleted, read, “all brands and labels that have dropped xiaxue. now in collage form”. This was picked up and published by the Malay Mail and the Malaysia edition of Yahoo! news.
In an update, the blogger said she was “very happy with the outcome.”
—/TISG
Read also: Xiaxue files Expedited Protection Order and Stop Publication Order against woman
Xiaxue asks how she can be more “privileged” than Raeesah Khan