Blogging Censorship in Singapore

If blogging is an online dairy, is there a need for censorship?

However in Singapore, the government has enforced strict censorship rules even on websites and blogs. Furthermore, they must be registered with the government (BBC). This is because Singapore is a multi-racial society and thus protecting the social harmony and political stability is important to the government.

Reasons to why the government implemented such harsh censorship rules are due to the fact that blogging has been used as another outlet for the opposition party to win votes from the citizens. Additionally, national servicemen were blogging about their military life both locally and overseas. But, there’s a need for information security. Hence the call for such measures. (AsiaMedia)

The National Internet Advisory Committee (NIAC) advises the Media Development Authority (MDA) with regards to the Internet policies and regulations governing the internet, new media and related services. Every year, there will be a censorship review committee that will assess the present framework of regulating the content of various medium. (MDA)

For further reading.
Singapore: New Media, Politics & the Law
Capitalist Infidel

Why blog

Blogging is a way of collecting links to webpages and sharing thoughts and ideas with people online. Blogs (or Weblogs) are basically online journals or diaries which are great for sharing information and ideas. (BBC)

Or Blogger.com would say,
         A blog is a personal diary. A daily pulpit. A collaborative space. A political soapbox. A breaking-news outlet. A collection of links. Your own private thoughts. Memos to the world.

To me, blogging is one way where I can update my friends about what’s happening in my life. However, blogging to others may seem as an outlet where they can pour out their emotions or it’s a way to inform people about one’s new discoveries.

Blogging is an advancement from the traditional dairy where one would write their thoughts and feelings in a book. No more using pen and paper. Now, it’s typing time. Furthermore, I can not only upload pictures and videos, but I can have comments from my friends as well.

For further reading.
Active Rain Blog

Introduction

Welcome to my humble blog. This blog has been created as an assignment for one of my modules – Document and Design Publication.

I blog for personal use. But blogging as an assignment is something very new. I’m being graded for blogging. How interesting is that?

Let me give you an overview about the posts that are to come. Basically, I will be giving my personal comments about the new forms of media technology and communication practices that are current in the 21st century. Hence my blog address, thetimenow.blogspot.com.

So stay tuned for more of my posts.