Sasaran 74th Edition SASARAN EDISI 74 (20FEB18) | Page 22

A few cases that involving online speech were filed under Se- dition law and Communication and Multimedia Act 1998 (CMA) in the past year. For example, a man arrested for number of Facebook posts that considered offensive re- lated to the Crown Prince of Johor. Other than that, there was a case an opposition party who mocked the prime minister and his wife on the net. Compared to Singapore, the government has never blocked websites that contain any political contents on the internet. In 1996, the Singapore’s government has kept a promise that there will be no blocking and filtering of any politi- cal contents. The Internet in Singapore is much more open than other me- dia platforms and the internet has become the most vital platform for alternative voices. The internet has become a medium for news and political discourse. In Singapore, under the Broadcasting Act’s Class License Condition and The Code of Inter- net Practice, the internet service pro- vider needs to take all the reasonable steps to filter and block any contents 22 . SASARAN JURNAL KRITIKAN MEDIA which contain undesirable, harmful and obscene materials. Freedom on The Net 2017 report stated that 100 websites in- cluding overseas sites that run by religious extremist and pornog- raphy sites have been blocked for the purpose of signposting socie- tal values. However, there were no political websites were found to be blocked. In 2013, the government has taken down websites most on pornography contents or solici- tation, gambling and drugs. For example, the Canada-based ex- tramarital dating Ashley Madison has been blocked since 2013, after it announced its plan to launch in Singapore. Next, the teenage blogger Amos Yee was sentenced to six weeks in Jail for insulting religious groups and transmitting obscene images. Based on The Freedom on The Net 2017 report, he was found guilty of wounding Christians’ feeling under Section 298 for an expletive-ridden video that likened adulation of the late Lee Kwan Yew to Christians’ worship Jesus. He was also found