20 ms·

Asia Sentinel Blocked in Singapore

90 points by tim_sw 3y ago

esperent 3y ago
There's nothing surprising here, although it's important to call this out. As I've traveled around SEA a lot over the past few years, I've found that many sites are commonly blocked and surprising how little it seems to be discussed. In particular, medium.com and BBC.com seem to be blocked in at least Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand. Probably Singapore too. Those are the ones I noticed, I'm sure there are many more blocked that I've not seen. There's no "great firewall" level blocking going on and the blocks are easily circumvented using a proxy or alternative DNS. But blocking media sites when they publish anything critical of the government is unfortunately standard in this part of the world.
- dendriti 3y ago
  I can access BBC.com and Medium.com from Malaysia without a VPN or alternate DNS server.
- eatbitseveryday 3y ago
  I assumed Singapore was a "modern" country with education, openness, etc. but the blocking of websites resembles closed countries like China and Russia.
  - borski 3y ago
    Singapore is an exercise in contradictions. In many ways, it’s extremely liberal. In others, it’s quite dictatorial. While I absolutely love visiting Singapore, I could never live there.
  - theowawayio 3y ago
    [flagged]
  - alephnerd 3y ago
    It's a hybrid regime/illiberal democracy like Russia (before Russia became a full on dictatorship in 2022). While they technically have opposition parties, they've de facto always been a one party state. There is an extreme level of censorship in the state as well and Media, ISPs, and Telecom Providers are almost entirely owned by the Government. The difference from countries like Russia is the Singaporean govt doesn't shoot their opponents - they just bankrupt them via litigation instead. P.S. Singapore's model of Illiberal Democracy is the template used across developing countries in Asia - from Thailand to China pre-Xi to India. Singaporean advisors were critical to developing China in the 1980s and 90s, as well as Gujarat in the 2000s.
  - netsharc 3y ago
    William Gibson, 30 years ago: https://archive.is/tCbpB https://archive.is/tCbpB Afaik porn sites are also blocked there.
  - defrost 3y ago
    It is and it isn't and the establishment dance with blind eyes about the discrepancies. The root cause article here is about openly reporting commonly known things that upset Muslim|Christian puritan values .. On July 23, 2021, an article appeared in the Tokyo-based English-language weekly Nikkei Asia Review, calling attention to the Singapore government's handling of so-called KTV lounges, alleging that decades of institutional failures in dealing with what the article called "organized crime cartels” were running what amounted to illegal brothels, which were responsible for the widespread spread of Covid-19 among the lounges’ patrons. ... As most Singaporeans know, the KTV lounges have been an embarrassment to strait-laced Singapore for decades, ... [1] To be clear twenty years back I was taken for business meetings to a 20+ story tower that was lounges and clubs from the basement to to the top floor .. with a strong height from ground correlation to sophistication|sleeze levels. Initially I met with individuals that owned fleets of ships and several skyscrapers (top floor, free top shelf everything) ultimately I socialised after hours with ships crew (ground floor, unsolicited lap dancing | hands on groin unless firmly pushed aside). Officially this didn't exist, in practice it appeared to be open knowledgge. [1] https://www.asiasentinel.com/p/singapore-kills-chicken-scare-monkeys https://www.asiasentinel.com/p/singapore-kills-chicken-scare...
    - alephnerd 3y ago
      The KTV scandal wasn't just about puritanical values. It also had negative impacts on Vietnamese and Thai women in Singapore due to the stereotypes that women from Vietnam and Thailand are only there as sex workers. This was also around the time that Singapore was seeing a severe backlash against immigration (eg. The anti-CECA protests, the KTV stuff, Opposition MPs stoking the xenophobic fires, etc) > To be clear twenty years back I was taken for business meetings to a 20+ story tower that was lounges and clubs from the basement to to the top floor .. with a strong height from ground correlation to sophistication|sleeze levels. Orchard Towers. It's open knowledge it's all brothels there. The SG govt legalized and heavily regulates prostitution and organized crime.
      - defrost 3y ago
        Orchard Towers rings a bell .. cheers. The twin standards and negative stereotype issue were there in Singapore 20+ years ago .. and common enough in various forms in many countries. I worked in geophysical remote sensing and across many years visited | worked in nearly 3/4's of the ~190+ countries and territories across the globe. You rapidly develop a habit of identifying the best and worst aspects of variopus countries and rolling along with whatever locals you are there to liase with and suspending judgement. My year or so of working in and out of Singapore surveying the Spratly islands region exposed me to many "contradictions" of life there - overall it's a nice city | island with a strong dash of double think surrounding issues of (say) local Singapore citizen V. expat worker expectations.
  - throwaway290 3y ago
    Singapore is modern but it's a full autocracy.
    - refurb 3y ago
      I wouldn't call it "full on autocracy", but the setup heavily favors the ruling party. A few examples: - There are open and free elections; the current ruling party, PAP, has ruled since the countries inception - However, the ruling party is more than happy to "tweak" the rules to make sure they stay in power. A good example is when they turn single member constituencies (one person is elected to one seat in parliament) to a group representation constituency (GRC), where 5 or more people are "elected". The argument was that it improves minority representation, but it also puts a barrier to opposition parties running because they need to field way more candidates (each one costs money). It's not surprisingly which constituencies were turned into GRCs when you look at how many voted for PAP - They are also quite blatant about "if you vote against PAP, we'll take money away from your constituency". Since PAP controls the purse, they "punish" constituencies that don't vote them in by deprioritizing infrastructure and public housing improvements. And they don't hide this. - There is no freedom of information act, so the ruling party (PAP) controls all government data. Opposition can ask for it, but the response is often "what is the purpose of your question?" or "releasing that information would disrupt racial harmony". So without hard data, the opposition has can't prove there is a problem. - The "grassroots" setup PAP has resident committees, neighborhood committees, resident's networks, etc. It's a massive group of volunteers for PAP that allows them a broad interaction with voters that the opposition can't really replicate - One opposition member made a claim in parliament that a woman who was raped was not treated fairly by the police. Well, turns out she made statements to parliament that were false. So the entire party was put on "trial" and every statement was run through with a fine tooth comb forcing the person to leave parliament. But then when PAP does it (like when Covid tracking data was shared with police, directly against what they promised) and it's smoothed over, an apology made and the laws changed to make it legal. So it's democracy, but set up to make it very hard for opposition to get into positions of power. It has happened, but the cards are stacked against them. That said, the PAP works very hard to keep the voters happy. When I lived there I was amazed when problems would happen and they would be fixed within a day or two. They are incredibly responsive to complaints, use their grassroots network to quickly collect voter sentiment, then quickly respond. So in the end, most of the voters are happy with PAP.
  - bunga-bunga 3y ago
    When I think of Singapore, I think of “benevolent dictator.” They may mean well (for now), but it’s still authoritarian.
  - awuji 3y ago
    Websites that are critical to the governments message are blocked in the West too. Either blocking sites isn't only a symptom of a closed country or the West is more closed then you care to admit.
- porphyra 3y ago
  > probably Singapore lol why would Singapore block BBC? They love everything British.
- asmala 3y ago
  Neither bbc.com nor medium.com are blocked in Malaysia (source: I’m there presently), and I don’t recall either being blocked in Singapore or Indonesia. The sites blocked in Indonesia (e.g. Reddit) cannot be accessed by using an alternate DNS (e.g. Google’s) but are available via VPN.
  - esperent 3y ago
    Medium.com was definitely blocked in Malaysia for several years. Glad to hear it no longer is. Unblocking reddit in Indonesia via DNS depends on the ISP, or did as of a couple of years ago. https://www.engadget.com/2016-01-28-malaysia-medium-block-explainer.html https://www.engadget.com/2016-01-28-malaysia-medium-block-ex...
    - asmala 3y ago
      Ah, you’re right, Medium was blocked in Malaysia for a few years for hosting Sarawak Report, a publication that shed light on the 1MDB scandal. Wikipedia tells me the ban was lifted in 2018.
- maest 3y ago
  Reddit is notably blocked in Indonesia as part of their "clean internet" laws.
  - neural_thing 3y ago
    I was in Indonesia about 20 days ago and Reddit worked fine for me
    - sm_1024 3y ago
      If you are using a US SIM card, e.g., all your traffic is tunneled to the US. That could be the reason.
    - bunga-bunga 3y ago
      Are you using 8.8.8.8? I occasionally bypass country “blocks” just by changing my DNS
  - rizky05 3y ago
    I am Indonesian, reddit are blocked on most ISP. The Law is called "Internet Sehat dan Aman (INSAN)" or "Healthy and Safe Internet". It's very easy to circumvent, I use 1.1.1.1 app from cloudflare.
- numpad0 3y ago
  It's not like there are shady corners and open boulevards in this world. Many "free world" countries block Russian outlets and extremism websites. That's sort of a rightful block considering the circumstance, but same a dictatorship would say. WWW/the Internet is already regional and there are mere bridges. There have been no global Web for at least a while, possibly it never existed. I'm starting to think that access to porn is direct indicator of Internet freedom and freedom of speech in general. There don't seem to be many governments that has to say on tastes of beige audiovisual content but not political speeches.
  - musicale 3y ago
    > Many "free world" countries block Russian outlets Which web sites are blocked, and where? Are they blocked for copyright reasons?
- mmasu 3y ago
  I am in Thailand, and neither bbc.com nor medium.com are blocked right now. Do you mean that they can selectively be blocked? “Problematic” articles, critical of government or key public figures?
  - lb4r 3y ago
    From my understanding of TLS and how governments are able to block sites (IP, DNS, SNI) it shouldn't under normal circumstances be possible for them to block specific articles. Maybe if they somehow could control the Certificate Authority, they would be able to bypass TLS, but I don't think that qualifies as a 'normal circumstance.'
- nerdbert 3y ago
  Malaysia doesn't block the BBC, I am a regular visitor there and read it each morning. They don't actually block very much compared to neighbouring countries, mostly some porn sites.
- jeswin 3y ago
  I consider Singapore less than ideal to live in, but not because some websites are blocked. While free speech and access to information is almost always a good thing, people raised with western values should not overlook that the east does things a little differently; not all countries started from the same place and lifting people out of hardship is the primary goal. As they prosper (as Singapore did), it'd be good if priorities are realigned and they become more open. But it's a process and it takes time. Now the second part. Singapore has some barbaric laws incompatible with modern society. Many times a year, they put to death people for drug related offenses (even cannabis), almost always poor people. It is tragic and heart breaking that such a wealthy country with a well-educated population (80% supporting death for drug offenses) gets behind execution for non-violent crimes. Most recently - 6 weeks back Tangaraju Suppiah was put to death for carrying 2 pounds of cannabis [1]. It's a well manicured garden, but I'd stay away from that place. Especially if you're raising kids. [1]: https://edition.cnn.com/2023/04/25/asia/singapore-cannabis-execution-tangaraju-suppiah-intl-hnk/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2023/04/25/asia/singapore-cannabis-e...
  - throwaway2990 3y ago
    > Singapore has some barbaric laws incompatible with modern society. Many times a year, they put to death people for drug related offenses (even cannabis), almost always poor people. Nothing to do with people being poor. Majority of those executed are foreigners coming into the country. https://youtu.be/-PXAOZwvv04 https://youtu.be/-PXAOZwvv04 You can argue cannabis is harmless but that’s simply not true. Most studies that look at long term usage conclude it affects the brain.
    - drsnow 3y ago
      Literally everything "affects the brain"
    - jeswin 3y ago
      > You can argue cannabis is harmless but that’s simply not true. Most studies that look at long term usage conclude it affects the brain. Let's assume this is true. Nobody is saying they needn't be punished, but put them to death? > https://youtu.be/-PXAOZwvv04 https://youtu.be/-PXAOZwvv04 LKY says in the video: "In America they're changing their minds and sending people back to the death row." Yeah, but not for this.
- ivlad 3y ago
  Neither medium.com nor bbc.com are blocked in Singapore.
- aussieguy1234 3y ago
  For the short time I was there, I had no issues accessing BBC or CNN from Singapore.
- Xantier 3y ago
  Neither BBC nor Medium are blocked in Malaysia. I don't understand the reason for spreading disinformation about this.
- coldtea 3y ago
  >But blocking media sites when they publish anything critical of the government is unfortunately standard in this part of the world. Probably because those media sites belong to countries with a tainted history with colonial involvement against the countries "in this part of the world", and push their narratives. If the situation was inversed, and e.g. those developing countries had the inverse power relationship with western countries (e.g. had some past or present where Thailand or Vietnam invaded or exercized power over France or the US), and the media sites were theirs, they'd be banned or shadowbanned or cancelled within an internet nanosecond.
- user_named 3y ago
  In the US, the sensitive news doesn't get published in the first place. Ie the Biden laptop stuff
irjustin 3y ago
https://web.archive.org/web/20230603014951/https://www.asiasentinel.com/p/asia-sentinel-blocked-singapore https://web.archive.org/web/20230603014951/https://www.asias...
defrost 3y ago
The Asia Sentinel article that kicked this off (now headed by a paragraph stating the Singapore Government's objections and position of 'facts') is: https://www.asiasentinel.com/p/singapore-kills-chicken-scare-monkeys https://www.asiasentinel.com/p/singapore-kills-chicken-scare... The three points of contention are that the Singapore Government asserts: * The Singapore Government did not threaten to end the business operations of Nikkei Inc. in Singapore; * M Ravi was not suspended from practising law for criticising the Government; and * Lee Hsien Yang and Lee Suet Fern were not threatened with Government action for warring with Lee Hsien Loong. and the blocking is due to the Asia Sentinel's refusal to masthead the 'correction' for thirty days and alter(?) the original article to comply. Right or wrong I side with the paper - it's relevant that they report that the Singapore Government disputes asserted factoids, it's fair that perhaps some form of this dispute goes to arbitration | court to independantly prove | disprove assertations .. but being forced to masthead a 'correction' to thirty days on pain of blocking prior to any (that I know of) independant review is extreme.
- axus 3y ago
  Never believe anything until it is officially denied.
siddiqi123 3y ago
Well if they are one thing that is consistent and predictable…
8bitsrule 3y ago
Interesting place, Singapore. On the surface, very clean and orderly. (How?) (In the past few decades, some very popular musicians were not allowed to perform there. Who's doing the micro-managing?) From Wikipedia's Singapore article: Ethnic groups (2020)[b] 74.3% Chinese 13.5% Malay 9.0% Indian 3.2% Others ***
- albatrosstrophy 3y ago
  Interestingly while the minorities have a higher birth rate compared to the majority Chinese, the ethnic breakdown remains the exact same throughout the decades. This is because Singapore's unsaid migration policy is such that the government takes in more immigrants of Chinese ethnicity to make up for the shortfall.
  - MichaelZuo 3y ago
    Keeping it at a fixed ratio indefinitely has a plausible legitimate reason, preventing the inevitable backroom political battles and bribery schemes by various groups seeking to tilt the immigration ratio in their favour.
- BananaaRepublik 3y ago
  There has been a lot of friction between locals and Chinese immigrants lately, especially with the rising cost of living. Public sentiment is quite negative, but the government seems happy importing more wealthy Chinese.
jusonchan81 3y ago
Asia Sentinel name sounds cool - is it a legit news house? I suppose no matter what they should be allowed to publish whatever they want. But still is this a news portal? Or some kind of personal blog?
- beebeepka 3y ago
  I just spent 10 minutes browsing the site. It appears to be legit and not a shameless mouthpiece for the US, which is what I expected.
Jenepas 3y ago
Singapore continuing to be a racist dictatorship which is fast becoming a Chinese colony!
- JJMcJ 3y ago
  > becoming a Chinese colony About 20 years ago SG required all Chinese language broadcasting to be in Mandarin, for example, following the party line in China.
noobermin 3y ago
So, unless something changed over the last day, I'm in singapore and just accessed the site, so although I don't doubt the government would make onerous demands because that's what they do, they aren't blocked right now it seems.
- d99kris 3y ago
  It's blocked at DNS level, so if you (or your wifi AP) uses let's say Google or Cloudflare servers it's accessible. Edit: See https://www.channelnewsasia.com/singapore/singapore-block-asia-sentinel-website-not-complying-pofma-correction-direction-3533176 https://www.channelnewsasia.com/singapore/singapore-block-as... for the local news about the blocking.
JCharante 3y ago
> While the blockage does deny general Singaporean readers access to Asia Sentinel’s website, it will have little effect on subscribers as AS is published on the Substack platform as a newsletter, which it means it is available in email accounts. Interesting, I haven't heard of email providers blocking senders by a country, so I wonder if you could connect a static site generator with a LLM to read emails from users and respond with the corresponding article. It'd be pretty easy to disseminate headlines because email clients typically give notifactions already and emails are really easy to share to other people.

90 points by tim_sw 3y ago

There's nothing surprising here, although it's important to call this out. As I've traveled around SEA a lot over the past few years, I've found that many sites are commonly blocked and surprising how little it seems to be discussed. In particular, medium.com and BBC.com seem to be blocked in at least Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand. Probably Singapore too. Those are the ones I noticed, I'm sure there are many more blocked that I've not seen. There's no "great firewall" level blocking going on and the blocks are easily circumvented using a proxy or alternative DNS. But blocking media sites when they publish anything critical of the government is unfortunately standard in this part of the world.

dendriti 3y ago
I can access BBC.com and Medium.com from Malaysia without a VPN or alternate DNS server.
eatbitseveryday 3y ago
I assumed Singapore was a "modern" country with education, openness, etc. but the blocking of websites resembles closed countries like China and Russia.
- borski 3y ago
  Singapore is an exercise in contradictions. In many ways, it’s extremely liberal. In others, it’s quite dictatorial. While I absolutely love visiting Singapore, I could never live there.
- theowawayio 3y ago
  [flagged]
- alephnerd 3y ago
  It's a hybrid regime/illiberal democracy like Russia (before Russia became a full on dictatorship in 2022). While they technically have opposition parties, they've de facto always been a one party state. There is an extreme level of censorship in the state as well and Media, ISPs, and Telecom Providers are almost entirely owned by the Government. The difference from countries like Russia is the Singaporean govt doesn't shoot their opponents - they just bankrupt them via litigation instead. P.S. Singapore's model of Illiberal Democracy is the template used across developing countries in Asia - from Thailand to China pre-Xi to India. Singaporean advisors were critical to developing China in the 1980s and 90s, as well as Gujarat in the 2000s.
- netsharc 3y ago
  William Gibson, 30 years ago: https://archive.is/tCbpB https://archive.is/tCbpB Afaik porn sites are also blocked there.
- defrost 3y ago
  It is and it isn't and the establishment dance with blind eyes about the discrepancies. The root cause article here is about openly reporting commonly known things that upset Muslim|Christian puritan values .. On July 23, 2021, an article appeared in the Tokyo-based English-language weekly Nikkei Asia Review, calling attention to the Singapore government's handling of so-called KTV lounges, alleging that decades of institutional failures in dealing with what the article called "organized crime cartels” were running what amounted to illegal brothels, which were responsible for the widespread spread of Covid-19 among the lounges’ patrons. ... As most Singaporeans know, the KTV lounges have been an embarrassment to strait-laced Singapore for decades, ... [1] To be clear twenty years back I was taken for business meetings to a 20+ story tower that was lounges and clubs from the basement to to the top floor .. with a strong height from ground correlation to sophistication|sleeze levels. Initially I met with individuals that owned fleets of ships and several skyscrapers (top floor, free top shelf everything) ultimately I socialised after hours with ships crew (ground floor, unsolicited lap dancing | hands on groin unless firmly pushed aside). Officially this didn't exist, in practice it appeared to be open knowledgge. [1] https://www.asiasentinel.com/p/singapore-kills-chicken-scare-monkeys https://www.asiasentinel.com/p/singapore-kills-chicken-scare...
  - alephnerd 3y ago
    The KTV scandal wasn't just about puritanical values. It also had negative impacts on Vietnamese and Thai women in Singapore due to the stereotypes that women from Vietnam and Thailand are only there as sex workers. This was also around the time that Singapore was seeing a severe backlash against immigration (eg. The anti-CECA protests, the KTV stuff, Opposition MPs stoking the xenophobic fires, etc) > To be clear twenty years back I was taken for business meetings to a 20+ story tower that was lounges and clubs from the basement to to the top floor .. with a strong height from ground correlation to sophistication|sleeze levels. Orchard Towers. It's open knowledge it's all brothels there. The SG govt legalized and heavily regulates prostitution and organized crime.
    - defrost 3y ago
      Orchard Towers rings a bell .. cheers. The twin standards and negative stereotype issue were there in Singapore 20+ years ago .. and common enough in various forms in many countries. I worked in geophysical remote sensing and across many years visited | worked in nearly 3/4's of the ~190+ countries and territories across the globe. You rapidly develop a habit of identifying the best and worst aspects of variopus countries and rolling along with whatever locals you are there to liase with and suspending judgement. My year or so of working in and out of Singapore surveying the Spratly islands region exposed me to many "contradictions" of life there - overall it's a nice city | island with a strong dash of double think surrounding issues of (say) local Singapore citizen V. expat worker expectations.
- throwaway290 3y ago
  Singapore is modern but it's a full autocracy.
  - refurb 3y ago
    I wouldn't call it "full on autocracy", but the setup heavily favors the ruling party. A few examples: - There are open and free elections; the current ruling party, PAP, has ruled since the countries inception - However, the ruling party is more than happy to "tweak" the rules to make sure they stay in power. A good example is when they turn single member constituencies (one person is elected to one seat in parliament) to a group representation constituency (GRC), where 5 or more people are "elected". The argument was that it improves minority representation, but it also puts a barrier to opposition parties running because they need to field way more candidates (each one costs money). It's not surprisingly which constituencies were turned into GRCs when you look at how many voted for PAP - They are also quite blatant about "if you vote against PAP, we'll take money away from your constituency". Since PAP controls the purse, they "punish" constituencies that don't vote them in by deprioritizing infrastructure and public housing improvements. And they don't hide this. - There is no freedom of information act, so the ruling party (PAP) controls all government data. Opposition can ask for it, but the response is often "what is the purpose of your question?" or "releasing that information would disrupt racial harmony". So without hard data, the opposition has can't prove there is a problem. - The "grassroots" setup PAP has resident committees, neighborhood committees, resident's networks, etc. It's a massive group of volunteers for PAP that allows them a broad interaction with voters that the opposition can't really replicate - One opposition member made a claim in parliament that a woman who was raped was not treated fairly by the police. Well, turns out she made statements to parliament that were false. So the entire party was put on "trial" and every statement was run through with a fine tooth comb forcing the person to leave parliament. But then when PAP does it (like when Covid tracking data was shared with police, directly against what they promised) and it's smoothed over, an apology made and the laws changed to make it legal. So it's democracy, but set up to make it very hard for opposition to get into positions of power. It has happened, but the cards are stacked against them. That said, the PAP works very hard to keep the voters happy. When I lived there I was amazed when problems would happen and they would be fixed within a day or two. They are incredibly responsive to complaints, use their grassroots network to quickly collect voter sentiment, then quickly respond. So in the end, most of the voters are happy with PAP.
- bunga-bunga 3y ago
  When I think of Singapore, I think of “benevolent dictator.” They may mean well (for now), but it’s still authoritarian.
- awuji 3y ago
  Websites that are critical to the governments message are blocked in the West too. Either blocking sites isn't only a symptom of a closed country or the West is more closed then you care to admit.
porphyra 3y ago
> probably Singapore lol why would Singapore block BBC? They love everything British.
asmala 3y ago
Neither bbc.com nor medium.com are blocked in Malaysia (source: I’m there presently), and I don’t recall either being blocked in Singapore or Indonesia. The sites blocked in Indonesia (e.g. Reddit) cannot be accessed by using an alternate DNS (e.g. Google’s) but are available via VPN.
- esperent 3y ago
  Medium.com was definitely blocked in Malaysia for several years. Glad to hear it no longer is. Unblocking reddit in Indonesia via DNS depends on the ISP, or did as of a couple of years ago. https://www.engadget.com/2016-01-28-malaysia-medium-block-explainer.html https://www.engadget.com/2016-01-28-malaysia-medium-block-ex...
  - asmala 3y ago
    Ah, you’re right, Medium was blocked in Malaysia for a few years for hosting Sarawak Report, a publication that shed light on the 1MDB scandal. Wikipedia tells me the ban was lifted in 2018.
maest 3y ago
Reddit is notably blocked in Indonesia as part of their "clean internet" laws.
- neural_thing 3y ago
  I was in Indonesia about 20 days ago and Reddit worked fine for me
  - sm_1024 3y ago
    If you are using a US SIM card, e.g., all your traffic is tunneled to the US. That could be the reason.
  - bunga-bunga 3y ago
    Are you using 8.8.8.8? I occasionally bypass country “blocks” just by changing my DNS
- rizky05 3y ago
  I am Indonesian, reddit are blocked on most ISP. The Law is called "Internet Sehat dan Aman (INSAN)" or "Healthy and Safe Internet". It's very easy to circumvent, I use 1.1.1.1 app from cloudflare.
numpad0 3y ago
It's not like there are shady corners and open boulevards in this world. Many "free world" countries block Russian outlets and extremism websites. That's sort of a rightful block considering the circumstance, but same a dictatorship would say. WWW/the Internet is already regional and there are mere bridges. There have been no global Web for at least a while, possibly it never existed. I'm starting to think that access to porn is direct indicator of Internet freedom and freedom of speech in general. There don't seem to be many governments that has to say on tastes of beige audiovisual content but not political speeches.
- musicale 3y ago
  > Many "free world" countries block Russian outlets Which web sites are blocked, and where? Are they blocked for copyright reasons?
mmasu 3y ago
I am in Thailand, and neither bbc.com nor medium.com are blocked right now. Do you mean that they can selectively be blocked? “Problematic” articles, critical of government or key public figures?
- lb4r 3y ago
  From my understanding of TLS and how governments are able to block sites (IP, DNS, SNI) it shouldn't under normal circumstances be possible for them to block specific articles. Maybe if they somehow could control the Certificate Authority, they would be able to bypass TLS, but I don't think that qualifies as a 'normal circumstance.'
nerdbert 3y ago
Malaysia doesn't block the BBC, I am a regular visitor there and read it each morning. They don't actually block very much compared to neighbouring countries, mostly some porn sites.
jeswin 3y ago
I consider Singapore less than ideal to live in, but not because some websites are blocked. While free speech and access to information is almost always a good thing, people raised with western values should not overlook that the east does things a little differently; not all countries started from the same place and lifting people out of hardship is the primary goal. As they prosper (as Singapore did), it'd be good if priorities are realigned and they become more open. But it's a process and it takes time. Now the second part. Singapore has some barbaric laws incompatible with modern society. Many times a year, they put to death people for drug related offenses (even cannabis), almost always poor people. It is tragic and heart breaking that such a wealthy country with a well-educated population (80% supporting death for drug offenses) gets behind execution for non-violent crimes. Most recently - 6 weeks back Tangaraju Suppiah was put to death for carrying 2 pounds of cannabis [1]. It's a well manicured garden, but I'd stay away from that place. Especially if you're raising kids. [1]: https://edition.cnn.com/2023/04/25/asia/singapore-cannabis-execution-tangaraju-suppiah-intl-hnk/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2023/04/25/asia/singapore-cannabis-e...
- throwaway2990 3y ago
  > Singapore has some barbaric laws incompatible with modern society. Many times a year, they put to death people for drug related offenses (even cannabis), almost always poor people. Nothing to do with people being poor. Majority of those executed are foreigners coming into the country. https://youtu.be/-PXAOZwvv04 https://youtu.be/-PXAOZwvv04 You can argue cannabis is harmless but that’s simply not true. Most studies that look at long term usage conclude it affects the brain.
  - drsnow 3y ago
    Literally everything "affects the brain"
  - jeswin 3y ago
    > You can argue cannabis is harmless but that’s simply not true. Most studies that look at long term usage conclude it affects the brain. Let's assume this is true. Nobody is saying they needn't be punished, but put them to death? > https://youtu.be/-PXAOZwvv04 https://youtu.be/-PXAOZwvv04 LKY says in the video: "In America they're changing their minds and sending people back to the death row." Yeah, but not for this.
ivlad 3y ago
Neither medium.com nor bbc.com are blocked in Singapore.
aussieguy1234 3y ago
For the short time I was there, I had no issues accessing BBC or CNN from Singapore.
Xantier 3y ago
Neither BBC nor Medium are blocked in Malaysia. I don't understand the reason for spreading disinformation about this.
coldtea 3y ago
>But blocking media sites when they publish anything critical of the government is unfortunately standard in this part of the world. Probably because those media sites belong to countries with a tainted history with colonial involvement against the countries "in this part of the world", and push their narratives. If the situation was inversed, and e.g. those developing countries had the inverse power relationship with western countries (e.g. had some past or present where Thailand or Vietnam invaded or exercized power over France or the US), and the media sites were theirs, they'd be banned or shadowbanned or cancelled within an internet nanosecond.
user_named 3y ago
In the US, the sensitive news doesn't get published in the first place. Ie the Biden laptop stuff

irjustin 3y ago

https://web.archive.org/web/20230603014951/https://www.asiasentinel.com/p/asia-sentinel-blocked-singapore https://web.archive.org/web/20230603014951/https://www.asias...

defrost 3y ago

The Asia Sentinel article that kicked this off (now headed by a paragraph stating the Singapore Government's objections and position of 'facts') is: https://www.asiasentinel.com/p/singapore-kills-chicken-scare-monkeys https://www.asiasentinel.com/p/singapore-kills-chicken-scare... The three points of contention are that the Singapore Government asserts: * The Singapore Government did not threaten to end the business operations of Nikkei Inc. in Singapore; * M Ravi was not suspended from practising law for criticising the Government; and * Lee Hsien Yang and Lee Suet Fern were not threatened with Government action for warring with Lee Hsien Loong. and the blocking is due to the Asia Sentinel's refusal to masthead the 'correction' for thirty days and alter(?) the original article to comply. Right or wrong I side with the paper - it's relevant that they report that the Singapore Government disputes asserted factoids, it's fair that perhaps some form of this dispute goes to arbitration | court to independantly prove | disprove assertations .. but being forced to masthead a 'correction' to thirty days on pain of blocking prior to any (that I know of) independant review is extreme.

axus 3y ago
Never believe anything until it is officially denied.

siddiqi123 3y ago

Well if they are one thing that is consistent and predictable…

8bitsrule 3y ago

Interesting place, Singapore. On the surface, very clean and orderly. (How?) (In the past few decades, some very popular musicians were not allowed to perform there. Who's doing the micro-managing?) From Wikipedia's Singapore article: Ethnic groups (2020)[b] 74.3% Chinese 13.5% Malay 9.0% Indian 3.2% Others ***

albatrosstrophy 3y ago
Interestingly while the minorities have a higher birth rate compared to the majority Chinese, the ethnic breakdown remains the exact same throughout the decades. This is because Singapore's unsaid migration policy is such that the government takes in more immigrants of Chinese ethnicity to make up for the shortfall.
- MichaelZuo 3y ago
  Keeping it at a fixed ratio indefinitely has a plausible legitimate reason, preventing the inevitable backroom political battles and bribery schemes by various groups seeking to tilt the immigration ratio in their favour.
BananaaRepublik 3y ago
There has been a lot of friction between locals and Chinese immigrants lately, especially with the rising cost of living. Public sentiment is quite negative, but the government seems happy importing more wealthy Chinese.

jusonchan81 3y ago

Asia Sentinel name sounds cool - is it a legit news house? I suppose no matter what they should be allowed to publish whatever they want. But still is this a news portal? Or some kind of personal blog?

beebeepka 3y ago
I just spent 10 minutes browsing the site. It appears to be legit and not a shameless mouthpiece for the US, which is what I expected.

Jenepas 3y ago

Singapore continuing to be a racist dictatorship which is fast becoming a Chinese colony!

JJMcJ 3y ago
> becoming a Chinese colony About 20 years ago SG required all Chinese language broadcasting to be in Mandarin, for example, following the party line in China.

noobermin 3y ago

So, unless something changed over the last day, I'm in singapore and just accessed the site, so although I don't doubt the government would make onerous demands because that's what they do, they aren't blocked right now it seems.

d99kris 3y ago
It's blocked at DNS level, so if you (or your wifi AP) uses let's say Google or Cloudflare servers it's accessible. Edit: See https://www.channelnewsasia.com/singapore/singapore-block-asia-sentinel-website-not-complying-pofma-correction-direction-3533176 https://www.channelnewsasia.com/singapore/singapore-block-as... for the local news about the blocking.

JCharante 3y ago

> While the blockage does deny general Singaporean readers access to Asia Sentinel’s website, it will have little effect on subscribers as AS is published on the Substack platform as a newsletter, which it means it is available in email accounts. Interesting, I haven't heard of email providers blocking senders by a country, so I wonder if you could connect a static site generator with a LLM to read emails from users and respond with the corresponding article. It'd be pretty easy to disseminate headlines because email clients typically give notifactions already and emails are really easy to share to other people.