Internet & Politics

“A politician needs the ability to foretell what is going to happen tomorrow, next week, next month, and next year. And to have the ability afterwards to explain why it didn’t happen.”

There had been an increase in numbers of politicians using Internet and social media sites to update their political messages so as to reach their citizens. In America, Internet was used during its presidential elections. However, in Singapore, there are limitations for political campaigning over the internet. Thus, despite the goodness of internet, there are still many restrictions that hinder that use of internet.

On August 13, 2001, new rules were set to regulate political campaigning of parliamentary elections on the internet as well as the use of posters and banners. Let’s take a look at the power and limitation of internet for political campaigning in Singapore.

(POWER)Under the Internet Election Advertising rules, registered political parties are allowed to:

Display party posters and manifesto, candidate profiles and photographs, announcements of party events, party position on issues, moderated chats and discussion forums;

Publish any newsletter, journal or other periodical publication of the political party;

Send any message by electronic mail that promotes or opposes a party or candidate;

Host chat rooms and discussion forums, but must appoint moderators during the election to keep logs of all messages and ensure they conform with the law specified in the regulation.

(LIMITATION)However, no person is allowed to:

Send any statement or matter requesting the recipient of the electronic mail message to forward the advertisement or
message to any other person;

Conduct electronic surveys during the election period;

Appeal for election funds.

Credits to Koh Lay Tin (http://infopedia.nl.sg/articles/SIP_548_2004-12-18.html)

People are saying that the young adults and youth are apathetic towards politic. However, I guess the reason for that was the fact that we were born after Singapore gained its independence. It is hard for the young adults and the youths to truly understand the hardship that many politicians and citizens went through all these while because we had been living in a Singapore where things are generally excellently planned out by our government for the best of our growth. Most youths are unaware of who the different ministers are but I guess it is because we really trust that our government are well selected and that they will definitely bring us to a even better country to live in. Nevertheless, I think there will still be a handful of young people who are concern about politics issue in Singapore because when one reaches the age of 21, they will be able to make their vote during general election. In that way, they will be more involve towards political issues in Singapore.


Let's take a look at one of the most recent video by Tin Pei Ling on whether the youths are apathetic towards politic issues: