Singapore to introduce anti-fake news law

Singapore, April 1 (IANS) Singapore is set to introduce a new anti-fake news law, allowing authorities in the city-state to remove articles deemed to breach government regulations, the media reported on Monday.

Facebook, Twitter and Google have their Asia headquarters in Singapore, with the companies expected to be under increased pressure to aid the law's implementation, the Guardian reported.

On Friday, Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong suggested that the law would tackle the country's growing problem of online misinformation.

His announcement follows an examination of fake news in Singapore by a parliamentary committee last year which concluded that the city-state was a "target of hostile information campaigns".

Kirsten Han, a Singaporean activist, expressed concern that broad terms such as "fake news" were open to abuse by authoritarian governments.

Reporters Without Borders ranked Singapore 151st out of 180 in its 2018 Press Freedom Index, three places below Russia.

It said Singapore's media censorship was rife and that "red lines imposed by the authorities apply to an ever-wider range of issues and public figures".

In January, Vietnam introduced cybersecurity laws that essentially criminalised the criticism of the country's government on the Internet.

Filipino journalist Maria Ressa, founder of the news website Rappler, was arrested on Friday on what supporters said were politically-motivated charges.

Last April, Malaysia passed its Anti-Fake News 2018 bill, introducing jail terms of up to six years for those breaching it.

The country's current leadership has attempted to repeal the bill following the arrest for corruption of Najib Razak, who was the Prime Minister when it was introduced.