FW: FW: [plug] Internet oppression - watch your backs!

[Bret Busby]

For anyone who is interested....

Bret Busby
____________________________________

> Would it be okay with you, if I posted your reply (to which I am
> responding), on the PLUG mailing list?

Of course.

> I figure that, the more this kind of thing is broadcast, while we can
still
> broadcast such things, the better.


Agreed. TV is the area we are currently missing out on.
We're getting positive coverage in the press and print
media, but TV is still portrayer us as supporters of
porn.

MM
____________________________________
-----Original Message-----
From: Michael Malone [mailto:mmalone at creole.iinet.net.au]
Sent: 04 May 1999 04:03
To: bret at clearsol.iinet.net.au
Subject: Re: FW: [plug] Internet oppression - watch your backs!



> As you are a member of EFA, I thought that you might be interested in the
> following, which I have posted on the PLUG mailing list.

I am.  If you don't mind, I'd like to forward your
message to the rest of the board as well.

Interestingly, Malaysia has dropped its Internet
censorship regime completely, on the basis that
it was hurting their economy.  The Singapore
regime is actually far less censorious than that
proposed by the government.  Only about 100 sites
are blocked (in total) by the SBA, and pretty
much everyone knows how to get around those bans
anyway.  I've attached an article below about the
Singapore situation, which you may find
interesting.

So Australia is largely going it alone, closer in line
to China, Burma and Iran than to Singapore or Malaysia,
which are much more progressive!  Its an utterly
ridiculous situation in which we find ourselves.

Finally, you may want to recommend that PLUG members
visit the EFA web site, and take some of the actions
specified.  In particular, there is nothing more
effective than a written letter to your parliamentarian.
About six individual (not form) letters is enough to
make any matter "an issue".  Sadly, it is often
impossible to get people to actually contact their
parliamentarian.

MM


Singapore Sling

FROM WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 4, 1996
ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE NETLY NEWS
Singapore seems to possess no more resolution than some primitive VR world.
There is no dirt whatsoever, no muss, no furred fractal edge to things.
Outside, the organic, florid as ever in the tropics, has been gardened into
brilliant green, and all-too-perfect examples of itself.

At least that's what William Gibson wrote about the country in Wired
magazine
four years ago. I'm in Singapore now to find out what's happened since then.
Marvin Tay stands at the exit to the airport, waving a copy of the December
issue of Wired in semaphore, as animated and affable as the corridors of the
Changi Airtropolis are chilly and sterile. Marvin works at Information
Frontiers Ltd, a local Internet firm. He's also my self-appointed tour guide
and critic. "You've developed quite a reputation around here," he tells me
on
the drive into town. To Marvin, my criticisms of Singapore in previous
columns
were too harsh. The country is not a police state. Gibson was wrong.
Singapore
is not "Disneyland with a death penalty."
Marvin is one of Singapore's growing number of digerati. Glued to his
handphone, he tears around the island in a late-model Alfa Romeo that,
thanks
to the astronomical auto taxes, cost him more than I make in three years.
"The
government is basically very paternalistic," he says. "Like your government
and
J. Edgar Hoover in the 1950s." He doesn't seem to mind. Business is good. We
drive on.
Indeed, Singapore is like the U.S. of four decades ago. It's like flying
into a
kind of twisted central-planning father-knows-best time warp. Lining the
streets next to such quintessentially American stores as Reebok, Esprit and
Timberland are government agencies like the Board of Film Censors and
buildings
housing the "Social Development Unit" government-run dating service and the
"Home Ownership for the People Scheme." Yet Singapore is aggressively
marketing
itself as an information city of the future. Data will flow through its
cyber-byways and as an online hub the nation will prosper as it did as a
19th
century trading center. At least that's the plan.
Singapore's commitment to free trade is long-standing. Settled by the
British
in 1819, the 585-square kilometer island quickly became Fortress Singapore,
the
empire's key southeast Asia trading post. After WWII and independence from
the
crown came Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, a censor-happy kind of politico
whose
accomplishments include a ban on jukeboxes. Lee Kuan Yew believes that this
tiny island-nation prospers best under a blend of economic freedom and
strict
social controls. Political liberty is to be shoved aside in favor of
strengthening economic muscle. As Ian Buruma writes in a recent issue of
TIME
Asia, now that Asians are in power themselves, they endorse the essentially
colonial idea that Asian people are not yet ready for freedom. The public
must
become better educated, or wealthier, or more disciplined, or more virtuous.
The point is that for an authoritarian government, people are never ready
for
freedom, not just yet.
The traffic light turns yellow. We screech to a stop. Marvin glances at me.
"Here we slow down for a yellow light," he explains. All is proper. Order is
king.
That's why criticizing Singapore is almost too easy. Chaos is verboten.
Chewing
gum sales are prohibited. Sell drugs, you face the gallows. Canings are
routine. Playboy, Penthouse and Cosmo all are banned. (The offending article
in
Cosmo was the one giving women tips on how to commit adultery and not get
caught.) Even a recent episode of "Friends" was censored. This summer, of
course, the Singapore Broadcasting Authority (SBA) decided to regulate the
Net.
Now Internet traffic crossing the border must flow through filters blocking
sites that may cause impure thoughts.
But still. . . People live here. What do they think of this?
In the five days I've spent here so far, at cafes on the Boat-quay, in
government offices lining Orchard Road and over Indonesian oxtail soup, I've
learned that netizens in Singapore are slightly embarrassed. They don't
particularly care for the SBA's regs, yet they defend them with the
lackluster
effort that Americans might reserve for justifying the wackier actions of
the
U.S. Congress. "Americans distrust the government," the locals say.
"Singaporeans don't. You know they'll do it right. The government has a
track
record of success." Small surprise; nobody likes to hear outsiders
criticizing
their culture.
What's more, goes the argument, the SBA has only extended existing rules to
the
Net. "How can we argue for Net freedom without attacking the existing laws?"
one lawyer asks me. Marvin suggests an answer: you can't. "Outwardly,
Singaporeans may look like any western people. But by culture, by value,
they're still Asian," he says.
"Do we look repressed here?" a group of soc.culture.singapore denizens asks
me.
Marvin has driven me to one of the cyber-cafes overlooking the waterfront. I
rest my $4 lime juice on one of the Sun Sparcstation 4s tied into a T-1.
"No,"
I say.
Perhaps it's that wealth, the economic riches so evident in the glittering
glass-and-steel office towers, that permits Singapore cyberians to tolerate
broad restrictions on online speech. Or perhaps it's the fact that the
nation
has no First Amendment tradition -- its constitutionincludes explicit
provisions for government censorship. Besides, the restrictions arguably
aren't
overly burdensome. Only about 100 overseas sites are blocked by the proxy
filters, and circumventing these automated border police is a snap.
In some ways, Singaporeans are more free than U.S. citizens. Income taxes
and
sales taxes are lower. Prostitution is legal. The government does not impose
rules on whom private landlords can and can't rent to. Unlike some cities in
the states, Singapore has no curfews. Being able to walk outside safely at
night in any area of the city, even the poor excuse for the city's red light
district, has its attractions.
William Gibson was eager to leave. He was exhausted, tired of what he called
the "Singaporean way." He was glad to return to the fractal-edged world. But
I
plan to stay a little while longer.