AUG 14 1996
Too much may be lost when SBA casts a driftnet
I REFER to Mr Koh Buck Song's columns on the SBA Internet guidelines and the Singapore Broadcasting Authority's reply.
I am disappointed that your columnist has been placated so easily by the SBA's reply that he has started urging us not to be concerned.
The SBA guidelines mention a great deal more than sedition -- for example, the outlawing of geomancy, palmistry, astrology and fortune-telling from the Net. What is the objective of this driftnet quality of law? Is the SBA suggesting that we throw away thousands of years of human values, traditions and practices, some of them being -- dare I say it -- "Asian"?
Incorporating this Sedition clause verbatim and without clarification in the SBA guidelines is poor public policy at best. The guidelines should include only the restriction of access to "pornography" by children -- and nothing else.
The Malaysians have said that censoring the Net is impossible and will keep their Multimedia Supercorridor free of such censorship attempts. Do we think we can clean the 10 km of the information superhighway that comes through our country and hope that our citizens will not roam onto the rest of tens of thousands of kilometres of the same superhighway? HARISH PILLAY
Medical care at hospitals consistent
What punishment for violators of guidelines?
