Singapore blocks posts targeting Indian community, says content likely from China-based platform
The government said that it had taken a ‘serious view of threats’ to social cohesion and racial harmony, including from external actors.
The Singaporean government on Saturday ordered social media platforms to block 14 posts that target the Indian community.
The posts had made claims such as that the island nation was being overrun by Indians.
The Singaporean home ministry said that the content “likely originated from a China-based platform” and was carried by other websites.
The ministry said in a statement that the narratives had started circulating online “in the Chinese information space” in May that Singapore was displaying anxiety about its cultural identity and ethnic politics.
The posts used “derogatory and demeaning language” to refer to the Indian community, it said.
The posts also selectively used images and footage of crowded streets in Singapore’s Little India area and of Indian devotees at a religious festival at Pagoda Street to claim that the country was being “overcrowded” with Indians, the ministry added.
The content undermined Singapore’s “model of multiculturalism”, the government said.
“Singapore firmly opposes nativism and xenophobia,” it said. “Any attempt to pit one community against another here must be firmly rejected. These attacks coming from a foreign source are doubly unacceptable.”
The government said that it had taken a “serious view of threats” to Singapore’s social cohesion and racial harmony, “including from external actors, and will act resolutely against them”. It urged citizens to be discerning when consuming and sharing information online.
The home ministry said that it had, along with the Singapore Police Force, assessed that the content was likely to constitute an offence for knowingly promoting feelings of enmity, hatred or ill-will between groups on grounds of race, or committing an act prejudicial to the maintenance of harmony between racial groups.
It issued orders for social media platforms such as YouTube, Facebook and X to block the content under the 2023 Online Criminal Harms Act.
Law Minister Edwin Tong told reporters on Saturday that there was no evidence showing that the posts had been part of a coordinated campaign by any country, The Straits Times reported.
Edited by Nachiket Deuskar.
