As of yesterday evening, sensationalist socio-political website The Real Singapore has effectively been shut down by the Media Development Authority of Singapore (MDA).
The troubled website — which came under flak for its xenophobic slant — has been noted by the MDA to have deliberately fabricated articles and falsely attributed them to innocent parties, as well as inserting falsehoods in articles that were either plagiarised from local news sources or sent in by contributors, making the content more provocative.
The duo behind The Real Singapore were arrested in February and charged in court last month. Yang Kaiheng, a 26-year-old Singaporean student, and his 22-year-old Australian girlfriend and schoolmate Ai Takagi face seven counts each under the Sedition Act and one count each under the Penal Code for failing to produce accounts for online advertisements to the police.
Another editor — a Malaysian by the name of Melanie Tan — has not been apprehended yet. Ironically, it was the foreign editors Tan and Takagi who were responsible for several articles that sought to incite anti-foreigner sentiments in Singapore.
“The MDA believes this editorial strategy of deceiving readers and doctoring articles was an attempt to increase traffic to The Real Singapore, and thus boost advertising revenue,” the authority wrote in their statement. “In so doing, The Real Singapore, including its two foreign editors, were seeking to make profit at the expense of Singapore’s public interest and national harmony.”
Yang and Takagi were ordered to cease posting on the website and all of their social media sites and mobile applications by 8pm on May 3, and have been banned from resuming operations under any other name. By 7.30pm yesterday, all of the website’s contents were removed and their social media accounts were taken down.
The couple have been given seven days to provide information relating to their former website’s operations and to make representations as to why their class licence should not be cancelled.
Photo: The Real Singapore screengrab
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