Top image: Straits Times / Getty images

In 2019, we are living in 1984. At least according to critics of the “Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act” (POFMA) that was read in Parliament on 1 April 2019 for the first time.

According to Law Minister K Shanmugam, the government will get to make the initial decision on what constitutes falsehoods, but the courts will remain the “final arbiter of truth”. Following criticism that POFMA would shut down free expression, the minister reiterated that the proposed law would only apply to “false statements of fact”, and “not criticism, opinion, satire, or parody”.

But before we get into anything else, let’s cut the bullshit: POFMA is a direct result of actors who deliberately propagate irresponsible and malicious falsehoods under the guise of ‘free speech’—the States Times Review (now rebranded to the Singapore Herald) being a prime example.

Take also, for example, last year’s viral report in The Independent about an elderly hawker who allegedly passed away after working for long hours under NTUC’s social enterprise scheme. Investigations revealed that the report had been fabricated.

Where falsehoods are concerned, it may be easy to dispute a blatantly false statement of fact like ‘the sun rises in the West’. But few falsehoods are as clear-cut, and to understand how to deal with this, we need to understand the contexts and political climate within which such false statements can seem so compelling.

For instance, the report on the NTUC hawker didn’t spread because it was intentionally misleading or merely sensational. Its viral ‘success’ was aided by existing social and cultural sentiments; the false report played on our general sympathy towards the elderly, the unhappiness surrounding the welfare of hawkers, and the growing distrust towards the social enterprise hawker centre model by NTUC.

According to a viral piece by Makansutra founder, KF Seetoh, these hawkers also dealt with ‘unfair’ clauses in their contracts, including “paying the management $600 a month to have them spot check their food quality and operation”, “monetary penalties like in a food court model for closures”, and being “expected to open 8 to 12 hours a day (minus preparation time)”.

These prevailing conditions laid the groundwork for Singaporeans to believe that an overworked hawker had passed away due to the uncaring bureaucracy of a powerful corporation.

Faced with misinformation of this nature, and poor media literacy standards among Singaporeans, one might think that regulation is necessary.