Online Safety Commission: A watchdog with teeth to protect victims

The one-stop agency tilts the balance towards victims of sexual harassment, doxxing and other online harms with powers to penalise non-compliance.

- Lim Sun Sun

Some people may play down online harms as being merely in the realm of the virtual, but that view is both shortsighted and ill-informed, says the writer. Singapore has long prided itself on being a safe and hospitable home for residents of all ages, genders and creeds. The Online Safety Commission will help extend that salubriousness to the virtual world too. ST FILE PHOTO

(ST FILE PHOTO)

Isabelle became the target of intense sexual harassment after her phone number and email address were posted online in sexual service advertisements impersonating her and using her image. She was inundated with explicit messages daily across Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and even regular SMS, with strangers offering money for sex.

Despite her desperate efforts to block contacts, report the posts and change her accounts' privacy settings, it took two long weeks before the messages began to subside. The ordeal took a toll on her mental health, causing anxiety, sleeplessness, and difficulty concentrating at work.

Isabelle's experience, recounted in SG Her Empowerment's (SHE) report, 404 Help Not Found: Lived Experiences Of Online Harms Survivors, underscores the pressing need for a faster response to online abuse.

The cruel reality is whereas the harm done to victims like Isabelle is instantaneous, remedies tend to be agonisingly slow, and piecemeal at that.

SHE's 2023 report, Study On Online Harms, found that more than eight in 10 respondents wanted offensive material removed swiftly and permanently. Yet the Infocomm Media Development Authority's (IMDA) Online Safety Assessment Report 2024 revealed that most major platforms acted appropriately on only about half the harmful content reported and often took five days or more to do so. For victims of such abuse or harassment, five days can feel like five lifetimes.