Got a call from my sister in Singapore about a YouTube video I sent her

I sent my sister a link to a documentary about climate change last Tuesday. She called me Friday and said she couldn't watch it because the video was blocked in Singapore. She said something about it violating their fake news law. I looked it up and turns out the Singapore government has a law called POFMA that lets them order platforms to take down content they say is false. It's not just about obvious lies either, it covers anything they think goes against public interest. My sister got a warning not to share the link again. Has anyone else had family overseas run into this kind of censorship for normal videos?

2 comments

2 Comments

blair_allen16d ago

Respectfully, isn't blocking climate stuff just protecting people from bad info though?

nathan54516d ago

The term "bad info" is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. 97% of climate scientists agree humans are causing global warming, that's not bad info, that's baseline science. Blocking it because a few loud people call it a hoax isn't protecting anyone, it's just picking sides. You're basically saying we should censor the established view because some people find it inconvenient. That's not how facts work. If we blocked everything that made people uncomfortable, we'd have to get rid of most history textbooks too.