Online academic platform gets Pofma order over false claims on Singapore governance

East Asia Forum article referred to handling of Oxley Road dispute and trial of WP chief

- Anjali Raguraman

Online academic platform East Asia Forum has been issued a correction order for publishing an article containing multiple false statements in relation to Singapore's governance. They include the handling of the 38 Oxley Road dispute and the trial of Workers' Party (WP) chief Pritam Singh.

The Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act (Pofma) office said on Jan 22 that it has directed the platform to put up a correction notice for the article, following instructions by Minister in the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) Indranee Rajah.

The original article - written by Associate Professor Michael Barr from Flinders University's College of Business, Government and Law - was titled "Singapore's new prime minister entangled in old politics".

The Australia-based platform will be required to carry a correction notice at the top of the article, and also on its social media sites X, Facebook and LinkedIn, where it shared the article.

The notice must provide access to the Government's correction on its fact-checking website Factually.

"This will allow readers to read both versions and draw their own conclusions," said the Pofma office.

The article published on East Asia Forum on Jan 14 "communicates assertions which are false and misleading", said PMO.

The first assertion was that the Singapore Government had misused the resources and time of the Cabinet, Parliament, police, Urban Redevelopment Authority and Building and Construction Authority to pursue Senior Minister Lee Hsien Loong's private agenda against his siblings and turn his family home - 38 Oxley Road - into a memorial to his father, founding prime minister Lee Kuan Yew, and himself.

The police investigations involving Mr Lee Hsien Loong's brother, Mr Lee Hsien Yang, took place because a disciplinary tribunal found that he and his wife, Mrs Lee Suet Fern, had lied under oath and had committed possible perjury.