‘They try to divide people’: Singapore orders social media sites to block content targeting Indian community

The Singapore government on Saturday ordered social media platforms to block access to posts that targeted the Indian community in the country. According to Singapore’s Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), YouTube, Facebook and X have been ordered to block access to 14 posts under the Online Criminal Harms Act (OCHA).

The direction requires the platforms to "take all reasonable steps to disable access by Singapore users to these posts", it said.

‘Attempt to divide people based on race’

"These videos attack our multiracial society and they try to divide people based on race. This, however, is not who we are. Every community in Singapore here is valued and everyone has an equal place," Singapore’s Second Minister for Home Affairs Edwin Tong said on Tuesday.

"These videos strike at the very foundation of what makes Singapore home for all of us and they undermine the very basis of our society," he added.

‘Content originated from China’

According to the state-owned Channel News Asia, investigations revealed that the content likely originated from a China-based platform and was subsequently shared by other platforms.

The social media posts, which include videos, portray various claims that Singapore is displaying anxiety over its cultural identity and ethnic politics. Such narratives started circulating online in the Chinese information space in May, the MHA said.

"Shortly thereafter, online content emerged containing inflammatory narratives about Singapore's cultural diversity and suggesting that Singapore was being overrun by Indians," said the ministry.

"From what we know so far, the content originated from overseas," Tong said.

He said the government does not tolerate any narratives that seek to undermine Singapore's racial harmony, "especially when it is propagated by foreigners".

The problematic content likely breaches Section 298A of the Penal Code for knowingly promoting feelings of enmity, hatred or ill-will between different groups on grounds of race, or committing an act prejudicial to the maintenance of harmony between different racial groups in Singapore, said the ministry.

The offence carries a punishment of up to three years' jail and a fine.

The MHA said Singapore firmly opposes "nativism and xenophobia".

"Any attempt to pit one community against another here must be firmly rejected," said the MHA. “These attacks coming from a foreign source are doubly unacceptable.”

Tong, however, said that there is currently no evidence to suggest that this is a coordinated campaign by any government. Investigations have shown that the content was likely generated organically by various foreign netizens.

Indians in Singapore

Singapore is home to a large Indian community, making it the third-largest ethnic group in the country. Tamils are the largest Indian ethnic group in Singapore, and Tamil is also one of the four official languages of the country alongside English, Malay, and Mandarin.

Despite accounting for less than 10 per cent of the country’s population, people of Indian origin have made their presence felt in Singapore’s politics, business and more.

Three of the nine presidents Singapore has had so far, including the incumbent Tharman Shanmugaratnam, are of Indian origin. The others were Devan Nair, who served as Singapore’s third president and SR Nathan6, who was the city-state's 6th president. JY Pillay, who is ethnic Tamil, also briefly served as Singapore's acting President in September 2017.