i find that the proportion of paid blogs to non-paid blogs in sgp and malaysia at a higher percentage than others. the best part about these are the “internet marketing experts” blogs, where they are basically promoting each other in a huge pyramidic model.

it all started with folks like mr brown and xiaxue right? what with sponsored deals and trips..

thanks for reminding me about that mda video. I had it totally out of mind and sight until I saw the front page picture. THANKS. haha sigh

Haha…the premature ejaculative announcement is just a pretense to more ominous things to come. First the desire to curb “erroneous” blog advertising, next will be ?

The government realized that this New Media is their NEMESIS to their own top down white washed mainstream propaganda to the masses. Many have learnt of the true colors through this new medium and such sites, like TOC. They eventually will find ways, like big brother China, to control and regulate the net. In China, Youtube ( along with many more ) is blocked!

Given the highly insecure, dictatorial, and suspicious nature of our junta regime, it’s only a matter of time before all the rules and regulations will be announced, governing the usage of the internet.

One must never forget; Singapore runs on FEAR. They need to start pumping out some of that fast. And as usual, it’s always about money-fine this fine that. US$11,000 should do nicely-for a false start.

so one wonders….

does the main stream media also take gifts or money, such that perhaps it may dedicate 4 pages consecutively everyday for about a week, writing about a book that recently launched?

Of course the MSM takes money, gifts, etc. They do it legally and it is called ADVERTISING. So go further and have advertisements looking like regular editorial pages and they call this ADVERTORIAL.

Of course, advertising is nothing new. But in the past there was a strong tradition of editorial independence and editors would fiercely guard their rights to publish what they believe is “the truth” and of public interest.

Today… editors need to protect their personal rice bowls and, as a result, have lost their balls.

Ever wonder, eg, why the MSM never publishes any articles about, say, the harmful effects of milk and milk products? Such information is all over the internet, but hardly, if at all, in the MSM.

Or why they devote such tremendous amounts of space to super luxury products / high end restaurants which maybe 95 or even 99 percent of readers cannot even dream about, let alone afford? Like million dollar cars and $35,000 shower heads? Or meals that are “reasonable” at approx $100 per person?

I remember some years back, ST Life once devoted THREE PAGES, with lots of photos, about some small, obscure boutique hotel in some foreign country, just because that hotel is furnished with Philip Starck furniture. And you think the recent Aware saga got too much coverage?

And do our MSM receive gifts from the PAP gahmen? You bet! That gift is called the PUBLISHING LICENCE.

MSM has their profit plunged? They deserve it. For goodness sake, do not disturb the new media, it is about opening up, a democratic process and not trying to squeeze every bits and pieces out of us to make them (msm) look grand and top. If MSM cannot battle successfully with new media because of their own unobjective news and failure, they have only themselves to blame. As the saying goes, if you drop balls on your own feet, don’t find fault with others and resort to threat. We do not want another burma in Asean.

This is one of many step by the ruling party to control the internet. It is bound to fail. It shows how fearful they are of new media.

It also makes a mockery of their attempts to attract foreign talent. Would real talent want to come to a place that tries to control information. The foreigners that come here and accept such restrictions are obviously 3rd rate.

@ 4) singaporean on October 14th, 2009 1.01 am

I think gifts need not be necessary to promote the MIW book. Since most of us know that many of the big ‘local’ companies in Singapore are so inter-linked with common directors, cross-company shareholdings, nominee shareholdings (“OCBC Nominees”, “DBS Nominees”, etc) and the like, it is only to be expected that SPH, who had published MIW (correct me if I’m wrong), go all out to publicise the book as a show of support to their bosses (should I say Masters?)

In fact, here’s a little sample of the SPH Board of Directors (from the SPH Annual Report:
– Tony Tan (ex-minister and PAP kaki),
– Ngiam Tong Dow (Director of OUB, Far Eastern Bank, Yeo Hiap Seng),
– Ng Ser Miang (of TIBS, NTUC Fairprice, ex-NMP and non-resident ambassador to Norway and Hungary),
– Dr Phillip Pillai (Director of ST Engineering, ST Electronics, Prudential Assurance, etc)

…can you spot a little link here? It’s the MIW old boy’s club, not unlike the Harvard alumni or the Sandhurst alumni. With such an intensive overlap by the local boys’ club, isn’t it expected that they go out of their way to support each other? I don’t like all this ar kah liao ‘be my friend, scratch my back’ support by all these high-flyers earning their salaries from our taxes.

However, in our Singapore political and business context, I don’t think it’s about being a friend. I believe it’s more about puckering up and performing a ritual that would never be considered by anyone with integrity and a moral conscience. Otherwise, one faces the likelihood of being cast into the wilderness. Can you imagine that? One of these guys falling down to our level (except he’d already have a couple of million dollars!) and having to survive. I suppose that’s why many of them usually emigrate because once you have $$$, you definitely get a better quality of life overseas.

I should really stop trying to link so many sub-topics like this! :P

There, there, there….dont sweat the small stuff….no one is planning to regulate the internet.

http://dotseng.wordpress.com/2009/10/13/is-mda-asking-bloggers-to-declare-their-income-an-interview-with-missy-dotty/

Everything is under control

SD

(Internet Liaison officer of the brotherhood)

Does this mean all reporters and writers from all media should declare IF they are also getting goodies in one way or another from anyone or anything?

AGAIN!, there is only 1 way out.

I think Bloggers can learn from MSM to write how they write what the write but applied to Alternative Media.

@ 9) singaporedaddy on October 14th, 2009 12.09 pm

The final passage ‘borrowed from
http://dotseng.wordpress.com/2009/10/13/is-mda-asking-bloggers-to-declare-their-income-an-interview-with-missy-dotty/
_____________________________
Q; Just a final question Dotty; you know the people in wayangparty are quite nervous by this development – do you think, the MDA ruling will work against them?

A: Really I don’t see why that should be Darkness. We’ve all being told time and again: there is nothing but lies and disinformation in the internet. Invoking the law may just break that magic spell – why should anyone do such a silly thing?

Really dont be so ridiculous.
_____________________________

ROFL…after so many attempts by Singapore’s body politic to discredit the validity of opinions and comments found on the internet blog sites and opinion pages (except for Reach, etc), any attempt to control the ‘final frontier’ moves a LONG way to legitimize the users of the internet.

*sigh* I don’t know whether to laugh or to cry. I guess the fear of the unknown (and the lack of control) is finally causing enough consternation to the incumbents who want to maintain their way of life…sadly, they keep forgetting that the only constant is change. :)

@ singaporedaddy #4:

look at which newspaper was promoting it, and who/what it was promoting.
kinda self-explanatory. :D

my mistake, @ singaporean #4

Do these bloggers pay taxes for whatever they got from the companies? If they do, then MDA could start by working with IRAS. If they don’t, then perhaps IRAS should start looking into it LOL

they will track and demand from every source of revenue to pay taxes… since like my nick name says… massive losses.

“There’s no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren’t enough criminals, one “makes” them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What’s there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced nor objectively interpreted — and you create a nation of law-breakers-and then you cash in on the guilt.”

(Ayn Rand, “Atlas Shrugged”)

The government should butt off the new media and mind their own business. They have enough issues on the table waiting for them to attend to rather than to stick their nose in new media. Non-accountabilities, non-transparency, ever-rising cost of living, unregulated influx of foreigners, lost of sense of national identity. They have not address the basic issues at hand and want to interfere in the new media. Have they got no sense of priorities ?

[...] vs X-Stream Media – TOC: Foolish talk of regulating the Internet (again) – Brotherhood Press: Is MDA asking bloggers to declare their income? An interview with Missy [...]

I take a slightly different view from most posts here.

The declaration would help to state up front where the blogger is coming from. Might not necessarily mean what the blogger writes is or has to be biased towards the sponsor. The decision then becomes a more informed one for the readers, and overall improved health on info reliability. This, I welcome.

The only issue is how best to effect this. Direct regulation is difficult, and not just because of the “vastness” of cyberspace. Someone mentioned taxation, and that’s a good example of a stumbling block – mountains need to be moved before MDA and IRAS can come to some agreement on how to plug this potential policy blackhole – i.e. who collects the taxes, who polices, etc.

My worry is, now this made public, that some effort will have to be made to come up with some semblance of a policy that is mostly ineffective. Think 377A saga. Too much ambiguity will a) prompt bloggers to ridicule and dismiss it, or b) lead to excessive caution and over-self-regulation. Neither of these outcomes do much good for consumers seeking info online, actually, just throws more smoke into the fray.

Surprisingly, the best solution could be to encourage a “commercial blogger code of honour”, outside the realm of regulation. But there are so many loose strings that comes naturally with this that govt cannot possibly take it up. Nor is there a need to, really, since it would be a community-based evolution.

cyberspace is a goldmine. Where can you find millions of people who are more than willing to pay out real cash to buy fake money to transact on unreal things?

Who says transactions cannot be taxed there. Go and try to buy a space station without paying tax. See whether it can be done. Cannot. You will have strange people in funny hats knocking on your door with tax return forms.

The problem is the people who know how to syndicate all this will never share their knowledge. They started developing their know how some 10 years back ago. They did it quietly.

During that time our gahmen kept saying there is nothing worthwhile in the cyberspace. These people on the otherhand saw gold, so they jaga the cyberspace like a baby tiger, feeding, caring and protecting it from day one. So they invested in the knowledge. They put their best brains to develop virtual monetary exchange systems that can even put to shame the IMF, ADB and World Bank put together.

Some even have international networks, linkages complete with banks / insurance / arbitrage and so on and so forth. Gahmen could have done the same. Who was stopping them? Ten years ago cyberspace was the wild west, but they were too busy dismissing cyberspace. So who do you think stepped into the blank space?

The question is do you think these people will teach the gahmen how to do their song and dance?

I dont think so. If they did MDA and IRAS can put their act together in less than a week. They are that organized and that good. I guarantee you. The problem as I see it is why should they even teach our gahmen? There is no incentive to do so. No money there.

21) HL on October 15th, 2009 11.45 am
… mountains need to be moved before MDA and IRAS can come to some agreement on how to plug this potential policy blackhole – i.e. who collects the taxes, who polices, etc.

hmm.. the tax issue seems rather straightforward, Bloggers who get advertising dollars are just self employed individuals. They have to declare their own earnings. The policing, if any, will be the same for other self employed individuals. e.g insurance or housing agents.

If you are paid to post, there is nothing to say right upfront that this post is being paid for. Maybe no need to name the payer but at least you alert readers to the commercial aspect of your post. There is no need to be dishonest about this.

I mean nothing wrong to say this post is being paid for!

[...] for a Third-world country [Recommended] – The Enquirer: It wasn’t just Chee Soon Juan – TOC: Foolish talk of regulating the Internet (again) – Brotherhood Press: Is MDA asking bloggers to declare their income? An interview with Missy Dotty [...]

[i]Bloggers who get advertising dollars are just self employed individuals. They have to declare their own earnings[/i]

and overpaid ministers/mps who act as moonshines directors in multinational companies do not needs to delcare @ all…did leekuanyew declared his earnins as consultant to citibank inc?

well try as they might, they can never regulate the internet. All these MSM try to do is project one side of the angle. Some are even caught in their hunt for publicity like the Balloon kid incident, so much for free press! They even show that Muslims should apologise for terrorist acts. Well, my take is very simple, terrorism is a crime and should be treated as such, even if they commit it in the name of religion. I do not see other religions apologise for crimes of their breathen, so why single Muslims out? Heck, no US citizen apologised for Tim McVeigh even though he said he was doing it for the sake of his country.