The Singapore government has gazetted The Online Citizen website as a political association. The Online Citizen is a website that has an active following of Singaporeans, and reports alternative viewpoints, some of which is political in nature. Everything is political in nature in Singapore these days. From the cost of public transport, the cost of cars, homes, healthcare, accessibility of jobs etc…
The gazetting of The impact of the freedom of alternative media in Singapore is difficult to estimate. First of all, The Online Citizen is a website with a loose association of citizen journalist with a loose editorial structure.
The Online Citizen was initially started by founders Choo Zheng Xi and Andrew Loh. Both these editors have left The Online Citizen to pursue alternative goals. The current acting Chief Editor is Joshua Chiang. Yet the website seems to grow with contributing citizen journalists. Popular writers like Leong Sze Hian, and Tan Kin Lian add credible views to the website.
So the gazetting of this website is primarily to identify the owners. However, alternative news sites like
- http://newasiarepublic.com/
- http://newnation.sg/
- http://singaporedaily.net/
- http://temasekreview.com/
- http://temasekreview.net/
are beginning to form. How about facebook groups? and twitter channels?