For the second time in 4 days, the Minister of Home Affairs K Shanmugam, has instructed the POFMA office to invoke the fake news law to correct false statements in a post on the FB page States Times Review. This came after the POFMA was unleashed for the first time on Monday on opposition party member Brad Bowyer.
The POFMA office confirmed that they had been instructed to issue a correction direction to Mr Alex Tan Zhi Xiang, who runs the States Times Review FB page. The offending post was dated 23 November, and was about People’s Action Party (PAP) member Rachel Ong and a Nussu-NUS Students United Facebook post, which MHA said in a statement its article contains falsehoods. The States Times Review Facebook post had cited a Nussu-NUS Students United post on Ms Ong’s alleged religious affiliations and said that one person involved in the matter was arrested and another was being investigated by the police. The MHA said these claims are false and baseless.
As this was the second such POFMA take down order in the short time span of 4 days, it is quite obvious that the POFMA office is now in full gear. This could be inversely related to the coming elections, as the government combats online fake news, mostly related to how the PAP is running Singapore. As the machinery is in full gear, Singaporeans can expect more such take down orders issued between now till the election period is in full swing.
