5 May 2005

A*Star confirms warning to student over defamatory blog

Very sorry, to return to this but suddenly A*Star is upholding the reputation of Singapore. A*Star equals Singapore, I thought PAP equals Singapore. Who is running this place A*Star or PAP? I am confused and feel like we have all been publicly threatened to say 'nice things', 'make funny jokes', 'be infantile' or shut up.

If anyone has a copy of the offending statements, post them here in the comment section anonymously and I will post them on this blog. To hell with only saying nice things, freedom of speech includes the right to offend others and that includes A*Star.

This blog allows for those who feel offended to comment and defend themselves. There is no need to take everyone who says nasty things about you to court just because you can.

By Wong Siew Ying,
Channel NewsAsia


S'pore student shuts down blog after threat of legal action


SINGAPORE : A*Star (Agency for Science, Technology and Research) confirmed it had warned a Singapore student of legal consequences over a public blog containing defamatory statements.

On Wednesday, Channel NewsAsia broke a story about how the Singapore student, who is pursuing his Masters degree in the United States, shut down his blog after he was threatened with legal action by A*Star.

Chen Jiahao was a former Public Service Commission scholar.

A*Star, in its response to Channel NewsAsia, said it found the public blog contained defamatory statements.

It also said it had the responsibility to protect its reputation and also that of Singapore.

So it warned the blogger of legal consequences unless the objectionable statements were removed and an acceptable apology published.

A*Star also said it welcomed a diversity of views in all media, but the statements made in the blog "went way beyond fair comment". - CNA/de

9 comments:

  1. I'd like to see the original comment made by AcidFlask too.

    ReplyDelete
  2. http://poppycock.blogspot.com/2005/04/it-does-make-py-look-worse-than-any.html

    ReplyDelete
  3. From Yahoo's cache linked below, scroll down to the post that starts with "update 20040423 1530: the
    legality of the material which has been commented out in this post has been disputed. the plaintiff alleges
    that all copies of this post must be removed from blogs which have copied this material."
    http://tinyurl.com/basm9

    I don't know what he means by "material which has been commented out", but if he's saying that it's the comments that are defamatory, another cached page
    (link below) has nine of the original comments. There were at one point fifteen comments, so either the rest
    had not been posted at the time this was cached, or they were deleted. I have not been able to find a cache that has all the original comments.
    http://tinyurl.com/apkst

    ReplyDelete
  4. The title of the article from CNA suggest a slight bias towards A*Star, "A*Star confirms warning to student over defamatory blog ". Isn't it for a court of law to decide if the remarks were defamatory and not the job of CNA?

    ReplyDelete
  5. Thank you, very interesting!

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