7 ms·

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.
    - alephnerd 3y ago
      Yeah. ASEAN is interesting to say the least. Definetly a lot of contradictions at hand, but stuff is definetly changing circa 2023.
  - nerdbert 3y ago
    The Singapore government legalized and heavily regulates organized crime?
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.

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.
  - alephnerd 3y ago
    Yeah. ASEAN is interesting to say the least. Definetly a lot of contradictions at hand, but stuff is definetly changing circa 2023.
- nerdbert 3y ago
  The Singapore government legalized and heavily regulates organized crime?

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.