SINGAPORE - Singapore submitted wide-ranging fake news legislation in parliament on Monday, stoking fears from internet firms and human rights groups that it may give the government too much power and hinder freedom of speech.
But Simon Milner, who works on Facebook's public policy in Asia, said after the law was tabled, the firm was"concerned with aspects of the law that grant broad powers to the Singapore executive branch to compel us to remove content they deem to be false and proactively push a government notification to users".
"This legislation deals with false statements of facts. It doesn't deal with opinions, it doesn't deal with viewpoints. You can have whatever viewpoints however reasonable or unreasonable," he said. The new bill proposes that the government get online platforms to publish warnings or"corrections" alongside posts carrying false information, without removing them."That way, in a sense, people can read whatever they want and make up their minds. That is our preference," Law Minister K. Shanmugam told reporters on Monday.