7 ms·

My comment on the PM and his relationship with poor human rights in Singapore was flagged. It got 70 upvotes. Seriously. :/ —- Here it is: He is obviously a sm

My comment on the PM and his relationship with poor human rights in Singapore was flagged. It got 70 upvotes. Seriously. :/ —- Here it is: He is obviously a smart person. I wouldn’t vote for him though. He recently sued and won a “libel” case against a blogger who reposted a link to a Malaysian web site claiming the PM is involved in the 1MDB scandal. Singapore is a one-party police state with zero press freedom and a poor track record of respecting human rights (being gay is still illegal). So whilst it’s impressive that politician can code, I don’t like him, his views, or his political party. https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/Singapore-blogger-crowdfund https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/Singapore-blogger-crowdfund...

yaacov 5y ago
One of the most interesting parts of Lee Kuan Yew’s book for me was when he talked about all the critics he sued for libel. He justified it as “of course I sued them for libel, otherwise why would anyone believe me when I said they were lying?”
- digianarchist 5y ago
  This is how the PAP keeps the opposition suppressed in Singapore.
  - xxpor 5y ago
    And when that doesn't work: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internal_Security_Act_(Singapore) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internal_Security_Act_(Singapo...
    - ValentineC 5y ago
      These days, it's POFMA [1] and FICA [2], two laws that put a lot of power into the hands of the cabinet, especially our Home Affairs Minister [3]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protection_from_Online_Falsehoods_and_Manipulation_Act_2019 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protection_from_Online_Falseho... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Interference_(Countermeasures)_Act_2021 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Interference_(Counterm... [3] https://newnaratif.com/shanmugams-stealth-coup-in-singapore/ https://newnaratif.com/shanmugams-stealth-coup-in-singapore/
  - refurb 5y ago
    Indeed. The one that stuck out to me is when a constituency votes PAP out, PAP turns off the money. HDBs aren't "selected" for upgrades. Public works projects are delayed, etc. And LKY fully admitted this - "If you don't vote for PAP, why should you benefit from our spending?".
- tmule 5y ago
  Libel laws exist in Europe too, including UK. Their existence, per se, isn’t problematic.
  - xxpor 5y ago
    From an American perspective they certainly are, but I realize we're the odd ones out here with extremely strong 1st amendment protections.
    - MichaelZuo 5y ago
      One this count, it does seem like the rest of the world is correct, even Canada has much stronger laws against libel and defamation and there’s no real pressure to make then weaker.
    - jb1991 5y ago
      Freedom of speech is just as prominent in many other places, such as the Netherlands.
      - xxpor 5y ago
        I could believe that, I know very little about NL law. Is there anything in the Netherlands comparable to the US Sullivan rule? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Times_Co._v._Sullivan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Times_Co._v._Sullivan
- jb1991 5y ago
  I once saw a book written by a 90s politician in Singapore that, in part, tried to explain why there is no free press in Singapore. The reason was that since all press are corrupt, the government cannot allow them. I found that amazing in its arrogance.
  - seanmcdirmid 5y ago
    This probably has a lot to do with Singapore's fragile existence after founding...after being kicked out of a union with Malaysia due to racial reasons, and with communist insurgencies in vogue in the 1960s/70s. I'm not defending them, just that their history is a reason why Singapore is Singapore.
    - jb1991 5y ago
      Every country has its unusual and unique histories, but most countries make progress in key cultural areas through the democratic process. Singapore has basically had just one family in power for its entire existence, which makes such progress much more unlikely, or at best, very difficult.
      - seanmcdirmid 5y ago
        > but most countries make progress in key cultural areas through the democratic process. I don't think that is true, especially for the SEA region they are in.
chrisfosterelli 5y ago
Not saying whether or not your comment should have been flagged, but given it is flagged, it's poor form to just repost the comment.
tokamak 5y ago
Well, fake news are illegal there. It's a different approach to the "western" one with pros and cons. As for gay rights, I am sure Singapore will revisit policies as soon as the neighboring Muslim countries will open up for some changes.
- radicaldreamer 5y ago
  Living in Singapore sure seems to make people unable to deal with perfectly valid criticism.
- samuel 5y ago
  Different as in completely wrong.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- autokad 5y ago
  actually I think its illegal to criticize the government even if its true.
  - ValentineC 5y ago
    Where? Singapore? It's not illegal per se, but public criticism (not private; I know many civil servants who'll be happy to criticise some of our government's execution in person) is highly discouraged if they value a career in the civil service or any of the many organisations the PAP has their tentacles in.
    - autokad 5y ago
      when I was doing study abroad in Singapore, there was a class on corruption in south east Asian governments. However, they were not allowed to discuss Singapore in that class.
radicaldreamer 5y ago
You can see this easily in stunted cultural production (compare Singapore with Hong Kong, for example). Singaporeans I know are very defensive though and love their “benevolent dictatorship” and bring up homelessness in SF or dirty sidewalks or something similar.
- umvi 5y ago
  Benevolent dictatorships are great, assuming your country really has one and that the leader is competent as well as benevolent. The problem is the "transfer of power" part. That's where democracy wins. It's super hard to keep benevolent/competent dictators benevolent/competent across generations... And once you are locked into a bad one, you are screwed.
- rayiner 5y ago
  It’s a fair comparison. If San Francisco had been an impoverished third world place back in the 1950s (as Singapore was), would its open and liberal culture have been conductive to it become a wealthy city by today?
- riantogo 5y ago
  Which is a sentiment I wouldn't dismiss. If you have visited Singapore and SF the contrast will hit you in your face hard. To US folks, Singaporeans lack political freedom. To Singaporeans, US friends lack a clean habitat, safety, healthcare, and bunch of other factors that should be a given in modern society. They see the sad wealth gap here (and hence the influence of money on democracy), the growing idiocracy, and a country once on top now sadly in fast decline. So maybe we should hear them out and learn the good parts.
  - jb1991 5y ago
    The wealth gap in Singapore is immense as well, but they have different (and derogatory) terminology to refer to it. For example, the city is built by immigrant workers often from Bangladesh. You should see the living conditions they are forced to endure. It's shameful. During Covid, they don't even refer to these hard-working people as being members of the community, and they segregated the Covid case counts by those who were and were not a part of society, in their eyes.
rayiner 5y ago
> Singapore is a one-party police state with zero press freedom and a poor track record of respecting human rights (being gay is still illegal). Singapore is a real, functioning democracy. It’s a city-state not much bigger than Chicago. Is Chicago a “one party” state? When was the last time San Francisco voted for a Republican mayor? Singapore is an Asian country with a significant Muslim population. How they exercise their democratic self determination to structure their society is none of our business. Frankly, bringing up individual rights in every discussion of Singapore strikes me as a very privileged take. As someone from Bangladesh, I wish Americans and others in the international community would focus more on understanding how Singapore turned itself from a poor third world country into an affluent one in a single generation. How it managed to crack down on the corruption and political instability that plagues fledging democracies. Studying those lessons would pay far greater dividends in terms of improving the human condition in Africa and Asia than imposing western notions of individual rights. For folks who do care about this issue, reading Lee Kuan Yew’s thoughts is fascinating. https://paulbacon.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/zakaria_lee.pdf https://paulbacon.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/zakaria_lee.pd.... This interview, in particular, is great. The interviewer. CNN’s Fareed Zakaria, is one of the most insightful observers of international politics in America.
- zenithd 5y ago
- ValentineC 5y ago
  > Singapore is a real, functioning democracy. Singapore is a "democracy" where the system is heavily stacked against opposition parties, and where supposedly apolitical institutions funded with public money like the "grassroots" People's Association [1][2][3] are heavily biased towards the dominant People's Action Party. [1] https://www.todayonline.com/singapore/explainer-perennial-issue-public-funding-upgrading-works-opposition-wards https://www.todayonline.com/singapore/explainer-perennial-is... [2] https://theindependent.sg/wps-sylvia-lim-has-to-use-void-deck-while-paps-chan-hui-yuh-uses-beautiful-serangoon-cc/ https://theindependent.sg/wps-sylvia-lim-has-to-use-void-dec... [3] https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/jamus-lim-reiterates-how-opposition-mps-do-not-get-to-give-out-edusave-awards https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/jamus-lim-reiterates-...
qkhhly 5y ago
replace "Singapore" with "China", then instead of flagging your comment, the HN crowd would shit themselves over your comment.
- rayiner 5y ago
  The difference is that China doesn’t have real elections, and Singapore does. They’re not any less real than elections in say California or New York, even though one party always wins.
  - digianarchist 5y ago
    https://newnaratif.com/how-gerrymandering-creates-unfair-elections-in-singapore/ https://newnaratif.com/how-gerrymandering-creates-unfair-ele...
jb1991 5y ago
I was surprised it was flagged and am curious why that was. There was a lot of discussion there. I assume that quite a few folks must have flagged it for it to have disappeared as it did. Unless there was a moderator play involved for some reason (or coordinated flagging by Singapore citizens, or perhaps YC interests in Singapore). I can't think of a reason otherwise.
Lordarminius 5y ago
> Singapore is a one-party police state with zero press freedom and a poor track record of respecting human rights (being gay is still illegal). "Being gay" is largely a western obsession. Different cultures have their attitude towards it (as they should). Polygamy is banned in the US and many western nations and accepted in many parts of the world, nobody argues it is a human rights issue. Let the Singaporeans be.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
dang 5y ago
Reposting flagged comments like this is doing an end run around moderation. That's abusive. Please don't do that again. Btw, upvotes are one factor in the system here. They are not the only factor. Indignation, sensationalism, flamewar, and other bad-for-HN things routinely get tons of upvotes. It's not a reliable signal of goodness, which is why countervailing mechanisms like flags and moderation are also necessary. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=%22upvotes%20alone%22%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...
- chana_masala 5y ago
  Why didn't you restore the original comment? It doesn't seem to break any rules. The most frustrating aspect of HN is that there is no easy way to have meta discussion about the rules or the actions of users.
  - AussieWog93 5y ago
    >The most frustrating aspect of HN is that there is no easy way to have meta discussion about the rules or the actions of users. Honestly, HN seems worlds better than any other forum in this regard. Just the fact that dang responded to this post with information about the moderation process rather than banning the guy shows far more restraint and respect than any other internet moderator.
    - chana_masala 5y ago
      Eh... The moderator transparency here is very low. Even reddit has moderation logs.
      - AussieWog93 5y ago
        At the same time, you can ask dang to explain any decision he's made and he'll give you a fair and reasonable (if sometimes mistaken) answer.
- 5y ago
dave_sullivan 5y ago
This should be the top comment, sad to see HN mods deleting this instead of arguing with it on its facts. As it stands, the top comments are all "Oh wow, cool!" which is exactly the reaponse you are cautioning against.

yaacov 5y ago

One of the most interesting parts of Lee Kuan Yew’s book for me was when he talked about all the critics he sued for libel. He justified it as “of course I sued them for libel, otherwise why would anyone believe me when I said they were lying?”

digianarchist 5y ago
This is how the PAP keeps the opposition suppressed in Singapore.
- xxpor 5y ago
  And when that doesn't work: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internal_Security_Act_(Singapore) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internal_Security_Act_(Singapo...
  - ValentineC 5y ago
    These days, it's POFMA [1] and FICA [2], two laws that put a lot of power into the hands of the cabinet, especially our Home Affairs Minister [3]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protection_from_Online_Falsehoods_and_Manipulation_Act_2019 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protection_from_Online_Falseho... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Interference_(Countermeasures)_Act_2021 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Interference_(Counterm... [3] https://newnaratif.com/shanmugams-stealth-coup-in-singapore/ https://newnaratif.com/shanmugams-stealth-coup-in-singapore/
- refurb 5y ago
  Indeed. The one that stuck out to me is when a constituency votes PAP out, PAP turns off the money. HDBs aren't "selected" for upgrades. Public works projects are delayed, etc. And LKY fully admitted this - "If you don't vote for PAP, why should you benefit from our spending?".
tmule 5y ago
Libel laws exist in Europe too, including UK. Their existence, per se, isn’t problematic.
- xxpor 5y ago
  From an American perspective they certainly are, but I realize we're the odd ones out here with extremely strong 1st amendment protections.
  - MichaelZuo 5y ago
    One this count, it does seem like the rest of the world is correct, even Canada has much stronger laws against libel and defamation and there’s no real pressure to make then weaker.
  - jb1991 5y ago
    Freedom of speech is just as prominent in many other places, such as the Netherlands.
    - xxpor 5y ago
      I could believe that, I know very little about NL law. Is there anything in the Netherlands comparable to the US Sullivan rule? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Times_Co._v._Sullivan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Times_Co._v._Sullivan
jb1991 5y ago
I once saw a book written by a 90s politician in Singapore that, in part, tried to explain why there is no free press in Singapore. The reason was that since all press are corrupt, the government cannot allow them. I found that amazing in its arrogance.
- seanmcdirmid 5y ago
  This probably has a lot to do with Singapore's fragile existence after founding...after being kicked out of a union with Malaysia due to racial reasons, and with communist insurgencies in vogue in the 1960s/70s. I'm not defending them, just that their history is a reason why Singapore is Singapore.
  - jb1991 5y ago
    Every country has its unusual and unique histories, but most countries make progress in key cultural areas through the democratic process. Singapore has basically had just one family in power for its entire existence, which makes such progress much more unlikely, or at best, very difficult.
    - seanmcdirmid 5y ago
      > but most countries make progress in key cultural areas through the democratic process. I don't think that is true, especially for the SEA region they are in.

chrisfosterelli 5y ago

Not saying whether or not your comment should have been flagged, but given it is flagged, it's poor form to just repost the comment.

tokamak 5y ago

Well, fake news are illegal there. It's a different approach to the "western" one with pros and cons. As for gay rights, I am sure Singapore will revisit policies as soon as the neighboring Muslim countries will open up for some changes.

radicaldreamer 5y ago
Living in Singapore sure seems to make people unable to deal with perfectly valid criticism.
samuel 5y ago
Different as in completely wrong.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
autokad 5y ago
actually I think its illegal to criticize the government even if its true.
- ValentineC 5y ago
  Where? Singapore? It's not illegal per se, but public criticism (not private; I know many civil servants who'll be happy to criticise some of our government's execution in person) is highly discouraged if they value a career in the civil service or any of the many organisations the PAP has their tentacles in.
  - autokad 5y ago
    when I was doing study abroad in Singapore, there was a class on corruption in south east Asian governments. However, they were not allowed to discuss Singapore in that class.

radicaldreamer 5y ago

You can see this easily in stunted cultural production (compare Singapore with Hong Kong, for example). Singaporeans I know are very defensive though and love their “benevolent dictatorship” and bring up homelessness in SF or dirty sidewalks or something similar.

umvi 5y ago
Benevolent dictatorships are great, assuming your country really has one and that the leader is competent as well as benevolent. The problem is the "transfer of power" part. That's where democracy wins. It's super hard to keep benevolent/competent dictators benevolent/competent across generations... And once you are locked into a bad one, you are screwed.
rayiner 5y ago
It’s a fair comparison. If San Francisco had been an impoverished third world place back in the 1950s (as Singapore was), would its open and liberal culture have been conductive to it become a wealthy city by today?
riantogo 5y ago
Which is a sentiment I wouldn't dismiss. If you have visited Singapore and SF the contrast will hit you in your face hard. To US folks, Singaporeans lack political freedom. To Singaporeans, US friends lack a clean habitat, safety, healthcare, and bunch of other factors that should be a given in modern society. They see the sad wealth gap here (and hence the influence of money on democracy), the growing idiocracy, and a country once on top now sadly in fast decline. So maybe we should hear them out and learn the good parts.
- jb1991 5y ago
  The wealth gap in Singapore is immense as well, but they have different (and derogatory) terminology to refer to it. For example, the city is built by immigrant workers often from Bangladesh. You should see the living conditions they are forced to endure. It's shameful. During Covid, they don't even refer to these hard-working people as being members of the community, and they segregated the Covid case counts by those who were and were not a part of society, in their eyes.

rayiner 5y ago

> Singapore is a one-party police state with zero press freedom and a poor track record of respecting human rights (being gay is still illegal). Singapore is a real, functioning democracy. It’s a city-state not much bigger than Chicago. Is Chicago a “one party” state? When was the last time San Francisco voted for a Republican mayor? Singapore is an Asian country with a significant Muslim population. How they exercise their democratic self determination to structure their society is none of our business. Frankly, bringing up individual rights in every discussion of Singapore strikes me as a very privileged take. As someone from Bangladesh, I wish Americans and others in the international community would focus more on understanding how Singapore turned itself from a poor third world country into an affluent one in a single generation. How it managed to crack down on the corruption and political instability that plagues fledging democracies. Studying those lessons would pay far greater dividends in terms of improving the human condition in Africa and Asia than imposing western notions of individual rights. For folks who do care about this issue, reading Lee Kuan Yew’s thoughts is fascinating. https://paulbacon.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/zakaria_lee.pdf https://paulbacon.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/zakaria_lee.pd.... This interview, in particular, is great. The interviewer. CNN’s Fareed Zakaria, is one of the most insightful observers of international politics in America.

zenithd 5y ago
ValentineC 5y ago
> Singapore is a real, functioning democracy. Singapore is a "democracy" where the system is heavily stacked against opposition parties, and where supposedly apolitical institutions funded with public money like the "grassroots" People's Association [1][2][3] are heavily biased towards the dominant People's Action Party. [1] https://www.todayonline.com/singapore/explainer-perennial-issue-public-funding-upgrading-works-opposition-wards https://www.todayonline.com/singapore/explainer-perennial-is... [2] https://theindependent.sg/wps-sylvia-lim-has-to-use-void-deck-while-paps-chan-hui-yuh-uses-beautiful-serangoon-cc/ https://theindependent.sg/wps-sylvia-lim-has-to-use-void-dec... [3] https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/jamus-lim-reiterates-how-opposition-mps-do-not-get-to-give-out-edusave-awards https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/jamus-lim-reiterates-...

qkhhly 5y ago

replace "Singapore" with "China", then instead of flagging your comment, the HN crowd would shit themselves over your comment.

rayiner 5y ago
The difference is that China doesn’t have real elections, and Singapore does. They’re not any less real than elections in say California or New York, even though one party always wins.
- digianarchist 5y ago
  https://newnaratif.com/how-gerrymandering-creates-unfair-elections-in-singapore/ https://newnaratif.com/how-gerrymandering-creates-unfair-ele...

jb1991 5y ago

I was surprised it was flagged and am curious why that was. There was a lot of discussion there. I assume that quite a few folks must have flagged it for it to have disappeared as it did. Unless there was a moderator play involved for some reason (or coordinated flagging by Singapore citizens, or perhaps YC interests in Singapore). I can't think of a reason otherwise.

Lordarminius 5y ago

> Singapore is a one-party police state with zero press freedom and a poor track record of respecting human rights (being gay is still illegal). "Being gay" is largely a western obsession. Different cultures have their attitude towards it (as they should). Polygamy is banned in the US and many western nations and accepted in many parts of the world, nobody argues it is a human rights issue. Let the Singaporeans be.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

dang 5y ago

Reposting flagged comments like this is doing an end run around moderation. That's abusive. Please don't do that again. Btw, upvotes are one factor in the system here. They are not the only factor. Indignation, sensationalism, flamewar, and other bad-for-HN things routinely get tons of upvotes. It's not a reliable signal of goodness, which is why countervailing mechanisms like flags and moderation are also necessary. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=%22upvotes%20alone%22%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...

chana_masala 5y ago
Why didn't you restore the original comment? It doesn't seem to break any rules. The most frustrating aspect of HN is that there is no easy way to have meta discussion about the rules or the actions of users.
- AussieWog93 5y ago
  >The most frustrating aspect of HN is that there is no easy way to have meta discussion about the rules or the actions of users. Honestly, HN seems worlds better than any other forum in this regard. Just the fact that dang responded to this post with information about the moderation process rather than banning the guy shows far more restraint and respect than any other internet moderator.
  - chana_masala 5y ago
    Eh... The moderator transparency here is very low. Even reddit has moderation logs.
    - AussieWog93 5y ago
      At the same time, you can ask dang to explain any decision he's made and he'll give you a fair and reasonable (if sometimes mistaken) answer.
5y ago

dave_sullivan 5y ago

This should be the top comment, sad to see HN mods deleting this instead of arguing with it on its facts. As it stands, the top comments are all "Oh wow, cool!" which is exactly the reaponse you are cautioning against.