It Has Begun - Singapore Considering Following USA's Lead With SOPA/PIPA
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Re: It Has Begun - Singapore Considering Following USA's Lead With SOPA/PIPA
#2The article that the Law Minister linked to: http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/singaporelocalnews/vi...
Re: It Has Begun - Singapore Considering Following USA's Lead With SOPA/PIPA
#3Singapore already has all of the infrastructure they need to censor whatever they want (online and offline) and they're perfectly comfortable using it. SOPA/PIPA may change what is "trendy" to censor (Singapore currently focuses on high-profile pornography, I believe, in addition to monitoring and limiting dissent, of course), but that wouldn't be a fundamental change.
Instead, what I'd say is that the example of Singapore is a reason to oppose SOPA/PIPA. Giving a government comprehensive censorship tools will inevitably chill democracy no matter what those tools are "supposed to" be used for.
Re: It Has Begun - Singapore Considering Following USA's Lead With SOPA/PIPA
#4Singapore is already 'ahead' of the US in having a site-blocking mechanism:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_Singapor...
One nice thing about the US political culture is that even those who want to censor things will try to spin their efforts as being something else; 'censorship' is a dirty word here, and even professional censors know it.
This isn't the same in less individualistic cultures; there it is often more broadly accepted that censorship for the 'public interest' must occur. The responsible agencies will thus speak with a frankness and pride about their censoring activities – unlike here in the USA, where the same topics only get euphemistic discussion.
Singapore has many admirable qualities but the space afforded non-traditional expression, and especially governmental criticism, is much more limited than in North America. Wikipedia has a nice summary of general cross-media censorship in Singapore...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_in_Singapore
...and the use of domestic libel suits and other pressure to discredit or pressure news publishers occasionally gets mention in major Western papers, as with this example...
Re: It Has Begun - Singapore Considering Following USA's Lead With SOPA/PIPA
#5Singapore is already 'ahead' of the US in having a site-blocking mechanism: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_Singapor... One nice thing about the US political culture is that even those who want to censor things will try to spin their efforts as being something else; 'censorship' is a dirty word here, and even professional censors know it. This isn't the same in less individualistic cultures; there…
> Singapore has many admirable qualities
Could you enumerate them? Do you (or have you) live(d) in Singapore?
Re: It Has Begun - Singapore Considering Following USA's Lead With SOPA/PIPA
#6Singapore is already 'ahead' of the US in having a site-blocking mechanism: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_Singapor... One nice thing about the US political culture is that even those who want to censor things will try to spin their efforts as being something else; 'censorship' is a dirty word here, and even professional censors know it. This isn't the same in less individualistic cultures; there…
small country is small. nobody really care about singapore
Re: It Has Begun - Singapore Considering Following USA's Lead With SOPA/PIPA
#7Note that the primary reason why the current state of copyright law in Singapore is overwhelmingly skewed in favour of the copyright cartel is due to the free trade agreement signed with the USA. They are obliged by the treaty to put in places laws which are draconian by US standards.
Re: It Has Begun - Singapore Considering Following USA's Lead With SOPA/PIPA
#8Singapore is already 'ahead' of the US in having a site-blocking mechanism: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_Singapor... One nice thing about the US political culture is that even those who want to censor things will try to spin their efforts as being something else; 'censorship' is a dirty word here, and even professional censors know it. This isn't the same in less individualistic cultures; there…
You are so 1990s.
Re: It Has Begun - Singapore Considering Following USA's Lead With SOPA/PIPA
#9NOTHING has begun. It's the same money pushing in other countries. It will be defeated everywhere.
Re: It Has Begun - Singapore Considering Following USA's Lead With SOPA/PIPA
#10Singapore is already 'ahead' of the US in having a site-blocking mechanism: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_Singapor... One nice thing about the US political culture is that even those who want to censor things will try to spin their efforts as being something else; 'censorship' is a dirty word here, and even professional censors know it. This isn't the same in less individualistic cultures; there…
> Singapore has many admirable qualities Could you enumerate them? Do you (or have you) live(d) in Singapore?
- successful economic development (those born in rich countries seem to take richness for granted. It is very valuable to those being born the country for the country to be rich. Singapore is now rich. It was poor just 40 years ago)
- safe city (probably the safest large city in the world)
- nice, warm weather
- great food
- easiest country to set up a business in the world
- good educational system
- very good health results
- budget surplus (they are not creating huge debt for the next few generations to deal with)
- very good public housing
- very good mass transit (people want it better, but it still is better than most other large, rich cities)
- good parks
- emerging art scene (it doesn't beat most other rich, world class cities, but is good and growing)
- international crossroads, very multi-cultural city which is nice in many ways but also a good position to be in as the world moves in a similar the direction)
- extremely well run government, you (or citizens...) may not like everything they are trying to do, but they are very effective at what they aim to do (something many governments are not able to do). They are willing to do very interesting things. Singapore will pay for the education of excellent students from Malaysia (as one small example - Singapore does many innovative things governmentally)
- very walkable city (don't need a car - can walk and use mass transit)
...
I have lived there. I now live across strait in Malaysia. Here is my blog on Singapore
http://singapore.curiouscatnetwork.com/