POFMA and the arithmetic of selective truth

On 7 March, ABC Radio National broadcast a programme called Singapore and the Long Shadow of Lee Kuan Yew. It featured academics calling Singapore a "one-party state," an "autocracy," and something "verging on a flawed democracy." One commentator said Singapore's ruling elite had "degenerated into being really a ruling class," that their business dealings "leave a nasty smell," and that it was "hard to believe that helping the country is their highest priority."

Singapore's High Commissioner to Australia, Anil Nayar, called these claims "baseless" and the programme "one-sided." He wrote to ABC to say so.

He wrote a letter.

Not a correction direction. Not an access blocking order. A letter — politely invoking journalistic standards and hoping for the best.

Compare that with what happened fourteen months earlier. On 14 January 2025, the East Asia Forum published an article about Singapore's political system. Eight days later, the Prime Minister's Office issued a correction direction under the Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act. When East Asia Forum failed to comply fully, Singapore's internet service providers were ordered to block access to the site. Targeted correction directions followed on Meta, LinkedIn, and X.

The article was written by Michael Barr, Associate Professor of International Relations at Flinders University.

Michael Barr is also one of the commentators on the ABC programme. The same man — identified by name in the POFMA order, described there as someone whose "comments are usually acerbic and biased, lacking any connection to the facts," and whose allegations the government called "mendacious" — appeared on a national broadcaster more than a year after Singapore had formally declared his arguments false, blocked the website that carried his article, and pushed correction notices to Singaporean users on Meta, LinkedIn, and X. On ABC, he made substantially the same allegations to an international audience.

High Commissioner Nayar's letter acknowledges that Barr and his fellow commentators "have expressed similar views for decades." The government has known about these arguments for years. It chose to POFMA Barr's written article in January 2025. Now, confronted with the same arguments on a vastly larger platform, it has reverted to a letter. The only thing that changed was the target's reach.

The POFMA order is specific about what the government considered false. Among the flagged statements: that the government misused the resources of Cabinet, Parliament, and the police to pursue Senior Minister Lee Hsien Loong's private agenda. That Singapore's ruling elite pursues self-interest while in office. The order's further clarifications section goes further, addressing Barr's "bald accusations that Singapore's leaders conflated public interest and private interest" — calling them not merely inaccurate but "mendacious."

On ABC, Barr said the ruling elite has "degenerated into being really a ruling class," that their business dealings "leave a nasty smell," and that it is "hard to believe that helping the country is their highest priority." These are not peripheral remarks. They are substantially the same allegation — elite capture, private interest over public good — delivered orally on an international broadcast.

Note the language the government chose in each instance. In the POFMA order, a formal legal instrument, Barr's allegations were "mendacious." In the High Commissioner's letter, the broadcast claims were "baseless." Same author, same allegation, same underlying charge about Singapore's ruling class — but the register shifts from a word that implies deliberate dishonesty to one that implies mere inaccuracy. The downgrade in language tracks with the downgrade in response mechanism.

By the government's own stated standard — the standard used to issue a correction direction, compel an access blocking order, and instruct Meta and LinkedIn to push correction notices to Singaporean users — the ABC programme would appear to engage the same threshold that previously triggered a correction direction. The High Commissioner's letter says so, without quite meaning to.

The honest explanation is jurisdiction. ABC is Australia's national broadcaster, a statutory corporation of the Australian government. You can write to the ABC. You cannot realistically block it. The diplomatic and reputational cost of issuing a formal direction against a major Western public broadcaster would be significant. So the government chose not to.

POFMA, in practice, suggests a law calibrated to the vulnerability of the target. East Asia Forum is a small academic website. The Online Citizen has been here before. Politicians, civil society activists, and independent media outlets feature prominently among the law's 89 cases to date.

The anonymous, algorithmically amplified, and foreign-operated disinformation networks that then-Law Minister K Shanmugam foregrounded in his 2019 parliamentary speeches — the bots, the trolls, the fake accounts, the foreign state actors — have largely been left to the platforms.

When nearly 300 AI-generated Chinese-language videos appeared on YouTube fabricating narratives about Prime Minister Lawrence Wong's resignation and fall from power, accumulating millions of views, the government issued no POFMA directions. Minister Josephine Teo told Parliament the claims would be "apparent to Singaporeans and residents as entirely fabricated," and urged the public to consult official sources.

Public discernment. The first line of defence.

The same public discernment, apparently, that cannot be relied upon when an academic publishes an opinion piece on a website that a few thousand people read — but can be trusted to hold firm against a coordinated foreign disinformation campaign reaching millions.

The POFMA order against Michael Barr's article called his allegations about Singapore's ruling class "mendacious." The High Commissioner's letter called his broadcast claims "baseless." Both documents, read together, confirm that substantially the same allegations — made by the same man, about the same subject — attracted a blocking order in one instance and a letter in the other.

The government found eight days sufficient to act the first time. They've had ten days on the broadcast.

Still waiting.