It has clarified the situation somewhat, but on a closer analysis, not quite enough.

The clarification came on 3 April 2006, when Balaji Sadasivan responded to a parliamentary question by Low Thia Kiang, (Workers' Party, Hougang). This is the part of the reply pertaining to political blogging:

Private or individual bloggers can discuss politics. However, if they persistently propagate, promote or circulate political issues relating to Singapore, they are required to register with the MDA. During the election period, these registered persons will not be permitted to provide material online that constitutes election advertising.

-- MITA website ('MITA News') accessed 4 April 2006

As you can see, after saying "bloggers can discuss politics" -- nobody ever said they couldn't outside of the election period -- the Minister of State for Information, Communication and the Arts qualified his comments almost immediately.

The first qualification was that if a website persistently propagates, promotes or circulates political issues, it has to be registered. As a sentence, this is very badly constructed. One never propagates, promotes or circulates "issues", but certain points of view. Because the sentence is badly constructed, its meaning is unclear. 

It sounds as if a site that discusses political issues, even in an opinionated way, is not within the ambit of the sentence, but one is left unsure [1]. The MDA's website uses a slightly longer expression: "propagation, promotion or discussion of political or religious issues", yet Balaji dropped the word "discussion" from his Parliamentary statement. 

This is confusing. Perhaps he means to be more liberal-minded now, but unless the MDA's own regulations are changed, which version are we to rely on?

Secondly, even if a site persistently propagates, promotes or circulates political issues -- whatever that means -- it still can do so, provided it is registered.

So what's the point of registration, you might ask? I don't think I can give you any answer that makes sense. See the section below  'Why register?'

One difference may be that, as Balaji highlighted, registered sites cannot, during the election period, "provide material online that constitutes election advertising."

"Election advertising" is defined in the Parliamentary Elections Act thus:

"election advertising" means any poster, banner, notice, circular, handbill, illustration, article, advertisement or other material that can reasonably be regarded as intended –

(a) to promote or procure the electoral success at any election for one or more identifiable political parties, candidates or groups of candidates; or 

(b) to otherwise enhance the standing of any such political parties, candidates or groups of candidates with the electorate in connection with any election,

and such material shall be election advertising even though it can reasonably be regarded as intended to achieve any other purpose as well and even though it does not expressly mention the name of any political party or candidate, but excludes any button, badge, pen, pencil, balloon and any other thing prescribed by the Minister by notification in the Gazette;

This indicates that even during an election, registered websites can continue to provide discussion of politics so long as no favouritism is shown.

But what I raised in the earlier article Blogging during elections has still not been addressed, and that is how narrowly or broadly will the above definition of "election advertising" be applied? I had argued in the earlier article that if they wish to use a broad interpretation of "election advertising", it can have a chilling effect. Even commenting that such and such a candidate gave a cogent reply to a question from reporters or that the audience applauded enthusiastically, could be viewed as "enhancing the standing" of a candidate. Might it be against the law to express such an opinion or make such a report?

The failure to come to the nub of the matter in Parliament means we're really none the wiser today than yesterday.

Is the government deliberately leaving the matter vague so that people will err on the side of safety and self-censor?

I'm not sure whether Balaji was himself aware of a dangling question that should be obvious, coming out of the answer that he gave.

What if a website or blog is not persistently political, and so is not subject to registration. Since it is not registered, it is not covered by the scope of the Parliamentary Elections Act and its subsidiary legislation, the Parliamentary Elections (Election Advertising) Regulations [2].

The explanation can be found in the MDA statement, 'Internet Industry Guidelines':

Content Providers do not need to register with the MDA, unless their web pages are primarily set up to promote political or religious causes. Registration entails giving particulars about the website. Registration does not mean the promotion of political or religious causes is not allowed. It merely serves to emphasize the need for the content providers to be responsible in what they say. This is important, given the multiracial, multi-religious nature of our society.

The justification that there is a "need for the content providers to be responsible" is a bit of a red herring. Other laws, such as our Sedition Act, quite famously cover internet speech already, registered or not. As for the need to give particulars about a website to the MDA, the government assumes that the natural state of affairs in the blogosphere is irresponsible anonymity.

However, as Mr Wang Bakes Good Karma pointed out in his posting "Faceless bloggers vs mainstream media... again!" (22 March 2006), most of the leading bloggers here aren't anonymous. "The true identities of Singapore's prominent bloggers are hardly ever a secret anyway," he wrote. By being open, aren't they already taking responsibility for what they say, registration or no registration?

On the other hand, if a blogger has decided to remain anonymous, he is certainly not going to reply to the MDA's request for particulars, so how is the MDA going to register the site?

Silly, right? Our laws are built on assumptions that are off the mark, and the result is meaningless regulation.

Now let's come to podcasts and videocasts (also known as vodcasts). I think Balaji has confused the matter considerably. 

This is the paragraph in Balaji's parliamentary reply pertaining to this:

There are also some well-known local blogs run by private individuals who have ventured into podcasting. The content of some of these podcasts can be quite entertaining. However, the streaming of explicit political content by individuals during the election period is prohibited under the election advertising Regulations. A similar prohibition would apply to the videocasting, or video streaming of explicitly political content.

It's strange. The term "explicit political content" is not found in the Parliamentary Elections (Election Advertising) Regulations. In fact the Regulations refer to "election advertising", using exactly the same definition for "election advertising" as quoted in the section of the same name above. Hence, by law, the operative criterion is not whether the podcast contains "explicit political content" but whether it contains "election advertising". This would seem to indicate that a podcast can provide political commentary so long as it does not promote or enhance the standing of any candidate or party.

We should very clear what "election advertising" is and not confuse it with political commentary in general. And we should be suspicious when a minister uses a broader term -- "explicit political content" -- than justified by the text of the law.

Supposing you had a podcast with a script like this:

Good evening, everybody, this is Sally the Squirrel once again, providing you a first-hand news report from Alchunit Field. Tonight, the field plays host to a rally by the Proper Asian Party. It began only 15 minutes ago, but already the field is filling up fast. Oh, even as I speak, another bus just arrived.

The first speaker has just finished. He cracked a lot of jokes and worked the crowd well, but said nothing serious. But the second speaker has taken over now. She's Julie Biscuit, one of the candidates for this Group Representation Constituency.

She's speaking quite fast, and anyway, there's no need to repeat for you every word she is saying, but basically, she's talking about upgrading and how all the blocks in this area will have glass bubble lifts that stop on every floor. The crowd is cheering wildly. Apparently they like the idea of being the first constituency in Singapore to have these state-of-the-art things.

Now she's speaking about how the party, if elected, is going to provide free baby diapers to all new mothers, to help our country's procreation rate.

Oh, there's a heckler! He's shouting about being retrenched... and, oh my gosh, he's just thrown a used diaper at her! And the police, the police are moving in... they're arresting him. How exciting!

Would this be considered as falling within the definition of election advertising? In what way does the podcast promote or enhance the standing of Julie Biscuit? If it's not election advertising, how can it be said to be disallowed?

What if it's a videocast with the same script as above. Let's say, part of the footage has Sally the Squirrel standing in front of a camera with the election rally in the background, while at other times, the camera pans the crowd or zooms in onto the stage.

Is this election advertising? If not, will it still be disallowed?

Now, the press have reported that Balaji said podcasting and videocasting were not on the "positive list" of election advertising, and this was the reason they were not permitted (see, for example, the Straits Times report in the box on the right).

But when he mentioned the "positive list", he was speaking only in connection with political parties, election candidates and their agents. (See the text of his statement in Parliament questions about internet regulation.) Let's not confuse the regulations as applicable to political parties and candidates with what applies (or doesn't apply) to private bloggers.

Having said that, videocasts (not podcasts) may come under the Films Act, even though Balaji himself never mentioned this law. The Films Act is now notorious for being used to investigate Martyn See for his documentary about politician Chee Soon Juan. Yet that very case shows up the fact that the Films Act bans "party political films", which are defined thus by the law itself:

"party political film" means a film ­ 
(a) which is an advertisement made by or on behalf of any political party in Singapore or any body whose objects relate wholly or mainly to politics in Singapore, or any branch of such party or body; or 
(b) which is made by any person and directed towards any political end in Singapore;

Surely, Sally the Squirrel's videocast is more in the nature of news reporting, and therefore shouldn't be said to contravene the Films Act? Or is Sally's attempt to educate and inform Singaporeans illegal because educating and informing constitutes being "directed towards [a] political end"?

One thing that we may be overlooking is that these laws may be in violation of the Constitution anyway.

The Constitution is supreme over our laws. If a law violates the Constitution, that law is null and void [3]. In that case, it's pointless for a minister to try to clarify how the law would be applied.

Clause 14 (1)(a) of Singapore's Constitution says, "every citizen of Singapore has the right to freedom of speech and expression."

A little further down, a few exceptions to the above guarantee are stated:

Parliament may by law impose... on the rights conferred by clause (1) (a), such restrictions as it considers necessary or expedient in the interest of the security of Singapore or any part thereof, friendly relations with other countries, public order or morality and restrictions designed to protect the privileges of Parliament or to provide against contempt of court, defamation or incitement to any offence;

It's worth noting that no exception is provided to the free speech provision on the grounds that certain speech is political. So, unless one really stretches the meaning of "security", "public order" or "morality", it's hard to see a constitutional basis for circumscribing speech just because it promotes any political or even party political point of view. And speech includes podcasting and videocasting.

© Yawning Bread