POFMA
When it first came out that the gov was trying to put it into legislation, there was rightfully some concerns. Such a legislation has so much potential to be abused, that even if we somehow had 100% trust in our current leaders, who's to say it will not set the stage for future leaders to abuse the power? Nonetheless, fake news is a problem that has gripped the world and needs to be curtailed in some way. I've read enough nonsense online to know how outlandish some of these things can be and would be more than happy to have them debunked, especially since these ridiculous claims only serve to create unhappiness and anger where they could have been otherwise resolved in more meaningful ways.
Working where I am, I am also aware of how nonsense some claims are. I'm personally very much privy to the details of one of the things that got hit by POFMA recently, and the claims that some make online are just ridiculous and honestly pretty insulting to my team who have worked hard. At the same time, I am also aware that our responses tend to be, well, they tend to be technically true. Statements are worded very carefully to make sure they say just enough of what needs to be said, but certain things are left unsaid. I get that, why cause unnecessary problems, why shoot yourself in the foot right? Still, what is the truth then? Isn't what POFMA smacks on people just another perspective? I definitely think it's a more valid one than the nonsensical claims that are plain false, but still not quite 'truth'.
That likely remains a legitimate issue of POFMA, that one party becomes the authority to decide which perspective would be labelled as the truth. I agree it helps that they don't censor the post and gives opportunity to counter, but still it's an imbalance of powers in deciding what is truth when perhaps the reality is somewhere in the middle.
I thought one particular interesting case study is the SDP POFMA case. POFMA got slapped, and then SDP rebutted. I'm pretty sure they're looking at the exact same statistics, but drawing different conclusions. And you know what, that's totally possible with stats. It depends on how you want to shape the data after all. If you scrutinise what both parties are saying, actually for the most part, they can both be true. PMET retrenchment can be falling on a YoY basis, but PMETs still take up a larger proportion of retrenchments as a whole. One is absolute numbers, one is percentage of the total retrenchment numbers. The only time SDP cites absolute numbers is from yahoo (which I have personally found tends to have a slightly more negative narrative), and that data was a limited comparison of one quarter to the next which is not helpful in showing trends.
With that in mind, I think with scrutiny I do see that the gov's case is stronger. After all, PMET retrenchment proportions increasing and the quarterly data do not line up with SDP's conclusions of a trend of increasing PMET retrenchment, unemployment, and increase in foreign worker employment. That is poor interpretation of the statistics.
That being said, are SDP necessarily factually wrong and the gov factually correct? This goes a little philosophical back into the question of what is truth. In the first place, how is the data for the statistics gathered? Do they necessarily represent what we think it does? Data is something that is often not as unbiased as we think it is after all. Even the talk about how PMETs make up a larger proportion of retrenchments, I mean wouldn't that's be in large because we have a large proportion of blue collar workers who work on in the gig economy? When they're not working it would not be reflected in such statistics. Anecdotally, I would find it hard to imagine PMETs are having a rougher time than the blue collar worker.
For me so far, I havn't found a use of POFMA I don't agree with in the sense that it has indeed been targeted at objectively false statements of facts. That being said, it's not like the picture they paint in response is 'the truth' either, it seems that the truth may not actually exist and its all up to interpretation. It also certainly gives the gov an advantage in building the narrative they want, just look at media coverage and you get a sense that the gov is stamping out ridiculous claims and responding with the truth, which we established isn't often exactly what is happening.
Finally, the threat of POFMA remains in the form of potential for abuse. I imagine the gov would be extra careful to make sure their initial cases are watertight lest POFMA be criticised. Later down the road, would we potentially see POFMA abuse slip through in a sea of legitimate claims? Perhaps, who knows. But I'll take it, I personally have enough of this nonsense from others at the moment that I'm happy to have POFMA smacked on them.
Hong Kong Protests
I briefly mentioned media coverage above, and I think the story of how media plays a role in deciding what is truth is very apparent in the Hong Kong protests.
The media coverage of the HK protest can be very different across countries. Let's put China's coverage aside, and look at our own coverage vs the typical western media coverage. There seems to be a greater focus on police brutality in western media and more on violent protesters in ours. I imagine they are both happening, but the proportion of what we cover creates either the narrative of overbearing rulers stamping out democracy, or of unruly thugs destroying their own city.
These perspectives likely arises from our own experiences in our countries as well as the intentional narrative each country would like to build. Police brutality is not an uncommon topic in the West and so the natural link to what is happening in HK is clear for them. Additionally, the West has always upheld the value of democracy, and so any movement that demands for more democracy tends to be viewed in a more positive light by them, even if they may not condone the violence of protesters. In contrast, Singapore has a strong history of being anti protesters and anti rioting. Naturally, the act of protesting is viewed negatively and the story focuses more on the heights of violence the protesters can go to. Additionally, the Singapore view of democracy has always been different from the West, where Singaporeans tend to be happy to trade off certain things for peace and stability. Hence there is lesser empathy for HKers demanding democracy.
So what is the truth? I find that there is a lack of objective information about protester violence and police brutality. There are episodes, but you don't get a sense of the actual scale.
What is truth anyway? Perhaps while there can be facts (ie. there are two apples on the table), there is no such thing as objective truth. After all, even the simplest things in life arise from a myriad of little things too much for us to comprehend. You can't ever have the objective truth about police brutality or protester violence unless you know every single detail, what happened in each incident, what are the factors that lead up to it, is this a cultural issue or an individual issue etc. Everything is just our best guess, simplified perspectives of what we think the truth might look like. And when issues are complex, when details, evidence and data points are scarce, the best guess of different people might look very different from each other.
It seems that maybe what we call truth is but a simplified attempt at explaining extremely complex things, and sometimes we do it more poorly than other times.
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