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Weiye Loh

The liberal media's war on 'trolling' is becoming increasingly intolerant and censoriou... - 0 views

blogs.telegraph.co.uk/...ngly-intolerant-and-censorious

Troll New Media Internet Freedom of Speech Feminism Islamophobia Racism

shared by Weiye Loh on 29 Jul 12 - No Cached
  • The respectable media’s war against “trolling” continually mixes together prejudicial spite with political thinking, as if there is no difference between them. So feminist bloggers who rail against misogynistic trolling wring their hands over everything from threats of rape, which are very serious and potentially illegal, to ridicule of feminism, which is just a form of political criticism – often not very sophisticated criticism, but so what? One news report on the problem of misogynistic trolling lumped together commenters who make “threats of rape” with commenters who are “strongly and personally antagonistic towards feminism”. That is outrageous. Feminism is a political ideology and thus must be open to criticism, even stinging, hurtful criticism. To compare ridicule of feminism with the threat to rape a female writer is a kind of censorious moral blackmail, where the aim is clearly to demonise critics of feminism by associating them with foul blokes who get off on writing emails about rape.
  • Web-surfers who criticise Islam and don’t like the ideology of feminism, or respectable media outlets that now denounce pretty much everything they disagree with as “trolling”? The war on trolling is starting to look less like a demand for civility, and more like a demand for conformism.
Weiye Loh

MDA says Aware needs distribution licence for DVD of 2009 meeting - 0 views

jg69.amplify.com/...icence-for-dvd-of-2009-meeting

AWARE Law Feminism Gender Equality Singapore Censorship

shared by Weiye Loh on 19 Feb 11 - No Cached
  • WOMEN'S advocacy group Aware's plan to distribute a set of DVDs of its dramatic extraordinary general meeting (EGM), held in May 2009, has hit a snag.
  • The Association of Women for Action and Research (Aware) has not been able to distribute the DVDs, as it is appealing against a requirement that it needs a government licence to do so.
  • The MDA has, in the meantime, given the DVD an M18 rating - meaning it should be seen only by those aged 18 and above.
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • Aware planned to sell the four-disc DVD box set of the EGM only to its 600 members, as an official record of the event. But its executive director Corinna Lim, 45, said an MDA official contacted her 'a few days' after news of the $100-per-set DVDs broke last October, to ask if Aware had a distribution licence. Ms Lim, a former corporate lawyer, said Aware has appealed against the need for one. She argued that the licensing requirement applies to businesses, not non-profit organisations.
  • Section 6 of the Films Act states that a person must have a valid licence in order to 'carry on any business, whether or not the business is carried on for profit, of importing, making, distributing or exhibiting films'.
  • 'I really take the view that we are not obliged to have a licence, and if they make us have a licence, they would be setting a terrible precedent for Singapore. 'That means any organisation that wants to distribute to your shareholders or just your members would need a licence.' She noted that recordings of the EGM were online, such as on video-sharing site YouTube.
  • But MDA director of customer services and operations Pam Hu told The Straits Times yesterday that the MDA has required some religious and arts groups - and not just businesses - to possess the distribution licence. Ms Hu added, however, that the MDA is reviewing Aware's appeal and would notify the group of the outcome shortly.
  • On the M18 rating, she said this is because the DVDs 'feature discussion of homosexuality and Aware's sexuality programme, which stirs up strong emotion among the members'. 'This contributed to the M18 rating as it requires maturity to understand the issues discussed and not be carried away by the emotive passion of the meeting.'
  • Observers were divided on how to interpret the law. Singapore Management University assistant law professor Eugene Tan said the language of the law does not limit its reach and thus could apply to Aware. But Professor Ang Peng Hwa, of Nanyang Technological University's Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information, said Aware should not need a licence as it does not distribute films in its normal course of work. 'If it needs to have a licence, that means any company that does a corporate video will also need (one). MDA will be flooded with licensing (applications),' he said.
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