It could very well be an exercise in futility. How do you reconcile such a conflict of interest.

Someone up there has no common sense, and is trying to collide two larger interests.

Said the 21-year-old who owns theonlinecitizen.com: ‘We thought a submission paper would be more impactful than five or six bloggers sitting with a whole lot of other people.”

Why didn’t AIMS invite more people? Do they feel the theonlinecitizen represents blogosphere? I don’t think we can expect very much from all this and I spent the whole morning studying the list of panelist. I am very sorry, I do not see any experts there, not even a single one. I really don’t know who they are trying to fool, but they are certainly not fooling the real experts.

If I read the situation correctly, the b’hood have decided to pull out altogether, that is indeed a most regrettable development.

I can understand why the members in AIMS prefer to engage those who have no working experience etc. I mean can you imagine if they had to discuss terms and conditions with some one like Darkness? Firstly it will not be easy. For one he will demand terms of parity. Secondly he will make sure reputations would be placed on the line and there will be real penalties, if one gets it wrong or says something stupid. I have seen this man in action, he will go for the throat, it’s hardly for the faint hearted.

I suspect this is the same reason why the Singapore Socio blogosphere review done by Mr Bernard Leong and Kevin Lim never ever once mentioned them, too sticky, despite highlighting the Intelligent Singapore. As to how they could have possibly missed out the B’hood and still manage to mention the IS is completely beyond me or anyone.

Most regrettable. From this point onwards it is fair to assume they will dismiss AIMS as irrelevant and will even communicate this to their partners. I wonder why only a few key bloggers were invited? In my view this is a terrible waste. Having the b’hood there would have ensured very little goes underneath the radar as they have a big network.

Very sad indeed, a golden opportunity was thrown away – I think it is reasonable to expect very little from this blogger meeting.

I am however very curious why Darkness doesn’t feel the need to participate?

(My joke about a parliamentary petition was apparently lost on the Straits Times reporter!)

Expect nothing!

Chairman
Cheong Yip Seng
Editorial Advisor, Singapore Press Holdings
Deputy Chairman
Prof Tan Cheng Han
Dean, Faculty of Law, NUS

Members
•Lucas Chow
Chief Executive Officer, MediaCorp
•Robin Hu
Executive Vice-President, Singapore Press Holdings
•Zuraidah Ibrahim
Political Editor, The Straits Times
•Koh Su Haw
Assistant Vice-President, Singapore Exchange Ltd
•Professor Eddie Kuo
Executive Director, Singapore Internet Research Centre, NTU
•Allen Lew Yoong Keong
Chief Executive Officer, SingTel
•Charles Lim
Principal Senior State Counsel, Law Reform and Revision Division Attorney-General’s Chambers
•Assoc Prof Anh Tuan Nuyen
Associate Professor, Department of Philosophy, NUS
•Assoc Prof Milagros Rivera
Head, Communications and New Media, NUS
•Assoc Prof Daniel Seng
Associate Professor, Faculty of Law, NUS
•Manogaran Suppiah
Chief Executive Officer, Singapore Indian Development Association

Looking at the list above I know it will be a waste of time.

This underscores the need to craft a holistic policy which is able to address the underlying roots of radicalism and even the best security experts are unanimous the only way to sensibly accomplish this is by creating the conditions for ‘good elements’ to take hold and hopefully take off – much of what constitutes the ‘good elements’ needs to be self sustaining, so no matter how one cuts it, one can never run away from creating a vibrant ecology that continually attracts the best in creative talent and more importantly capital i.e the creation of a sustainable online economy.

However, to reach there one needs to be able to see the entire issue of security / sustainable economy with a sense of scale and perspective – this cannot be over estimated!

As I mentioned previously, terrorism is a serious problem, but let us not confuse the internet (medium) with terrorism, they could just as well spread their message of hate using homing pigeons, Morse code or cue cards. Fact remains, the vast majority of bloggers are peace loving folk – confusing the issue is like saying all cars should be banned because a minority of people regularly drink and drive causing accidents – that may be a palpable truth, but to assume that is in any way representative of the car owning community is just plain silly and to even suggest for one moment that should form the basis, rationale and logic of introducing regulatory measures to ban all automobiles is crazy – if we can appreciate this cannot be practically done for automobiles, trains and aeroplanes (which incidentally were used as missiles to plough into the World Trade centre), then why should this shitty 2 cell logic apply to the internet? – can anyone tell me?

Besides the last time I checked our ministers are paid $2.2 million, so what are the type of questions serious people would ask?

Firstly, they will ask, can you share with us your master plan for creating a sustainable online community? What are the elements which are required for this to take off? For instance, how do you propose to create an environment which is able to attract the most creative talent to the local scene? What are the elements which will form the basis of attracting investment into the internet? As you can see the questions aren’t so different from how one may cross examine the trade and industry minister – however please don’t confuse this with hardware and infrastructure, I am referring specifically to software or thoughtware ONLY. Any fool can lay out miles and miles of co-axial cable again or built transmission beacons that requires only $2.20 of imagination, the really smart people ask – hey what is your long term plan for the brain juice to handshake with the infrastructure?

But don’t hold your breathe if you don’t get any answers – you know why that’s the part that really requires skill, imagination and creativity. Now you know why everyone is happy to play the national security card! Once you ppl decide to get serious, put $2.2 million in small notes in a bin bag and give me a call, I will come along in my bicycle and pick it up and hopefully we can sit down and really do something meaningful. As it is, I am not interested, because as I mentioned previously the level of interest and commitment is still woefully lacking, I don’t deal with amateurs!

Darkness 2007

Beef up the intelligence, don’t take short cuts and use them as excuses to perform more censorship.

When politicians are stagnant, look at Australia.

QUOTE
11 Let me move on to the social impact. The social impact of new media is now a daily staple of media reporting. We know about the social ills and dangers of porn sites, sex predators in chatrooms and the influence of radical websites on otherwise ordinary people. Recently, we had to detain a Singaporean for his involvement in potential terrorist activities. He was not a religious fanatic but a trained lawyer who became involved with terrorism through the internet websites promoting extreme religious and terrorist ideology. It showed how self-radicalisation can take place when individuals are sucked into the vortex of lies and distortion on the internet. This incident showed how even well educated individuals ended up indoctrinated and manipulated by people behind such radical websites. They learn terrorist tactics and gain contacts with terrorist organisations online.

12 Governments will have to be very vigilant to deal with this new threat. Up till now, we have adopted a “light touch” approach to new media. Despite the risks and threats, we believe that this is still the most practical approach to manage the new media. However, we will have to be alert to the presence of websites which pose a threat to our society with their radical online content. Where necessary we will be prepared to restrict access to such websites.
UNQUOTE

(Source: http://www.mica.gov.sg/pressroom/press_070621.htm)

See also

http://www.nrf.gov.sg/nrf/strategic.aspx?id=154

http://www.nrf.gov.sg/nrf/strategic.aspx?id=156

Sorry for the omission. The body is the Advisory Council on the Impact of New Media on Society (Aims) headed by SPH’s Cheong Yip Seng.

Regards,
Zheng Xi

Can we have the identity of this govt-linked body? WHo are the organisers?

More transparency in this aspect is required.

Darkness has certainly highlighted some important points to consider very seriously. I did not really see it as a 5% vs 95% issue. I wonder how did you come to that specific appraisal, care to share?

Firstly, he contends, there are other issues other than the current preoccupation with security which deserves more attention.

I believe currently the authorities are focussed on those issues only because that is really all they can do. I do not believe as Darkness rightly mentioned they either have the experiential knowledge or the core competence to direct themselves to the real issues which is generating wealth and opportunities in the blogosphere.

This is of course a very hard hitting claim, but I have reviewed the panelist and not a single one of them have any experience in the area of growing businesses online. They may have once been part of a committee, but as far as direct involvement is concerned, there is certainly none. So my question is this, are the people selected to form the panel even the right people?

I find it bizzare that people who have absolutely no knowledge in nurturing businesses online have a claim on such an important portfolio, that is shaping the eventual form of something that will affect thousands of businessman.

I don’t want to take sides, but I seriously believe Darkness has certainly raised a host of important questions which deserved to be properly addressed.

Thank You / HL YANG