meekia

Acid in my eyes

I was curious about all that fuss.
So I surfed, and read, and collated.

Let's start at the beginning.
____________________________

Where It Supposedly All Started
By Acid Flask
Excerpt From Tomorrow.sg 06, May 2005.
On April 22 (Friday), I received the first email from Mr. Philip Yeo, chairman of A*STAR, dated 5:44 am GMT-5 which notified me that he had earmarked a post on my blog (#442) for legal action. Over the next three days he sent me a total of eleven emails which were of a threatening and insulting nature, demanding that I remove "all" the posts on my blog or face legal action for defaming A*STAR and himself.

Despite writing to him three times seeking clarification by email, he had refused to elaborate on which specific remarks he had found offensive and reiterated his demand to remove "everything" on my blog. Since my end of semester examinations begin this Friday (May 6), I am sure you can appreciate how I was certainly not in the mood to sift through the 400-odd posts that I had written on my blog and edit or remove anything that was potentially defamatory. Therefore the only choice I had to stem the barrage of emails was to take the whole thing off-line. It was only when I wrote to him, informing him of my taking the blog down that he sent me a final (and twelfth) email last Tuesday, saying that his lawyer would follow up with amendments to my apology posted online. To date I have yet to hear from them so I assume the matter is closed.

I cannot reveal the exact details of the communication as Mr. Yeo had also threatened further litigation regarding the disclosure of some of the contents of the exchange.....

...........I spoke out because as a taxpayer and citizen, I cared enough about the policies at hand to make reasoned opinions about them, and in particular to point out what I considered to be possibly counterproductive side effects. I considered remarks made by persons such as Dr. Vivian Balakrishnan and MM Lee Kuan Yew earlier this year, urging young Singaporeans to speak out, as encouragement to do so. As a young Singaporean who tried to speak out and received such an intimidating response, I am disappointed and discouraged that Mr. Yeo had not attempted to correct any possible misconceptions that I may have had over the interpretation of publicly available information, deciding instead to threaten to sue me for defamation. I cannot say that such actions have promoted the cause of getting young Singaporeans to speak out.

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SEVEN KEY POINTS ABOUT THE ACIDFLASK SITUATION ::

1. Discourse. Dialogue. Discussion?
ASTAR's belligerent approach have in an instance demolished only one thing - the credibility of PM Lee's talk of the government's interest in engaging the nation in dialogue and debate.
Posted by Anonymous Craven* on 6 May, 2005 - 10:14am
--- from comments section in Tomorrow.sg's publication of AcidFlask's email

2. Compassion. Commitment. Communication?
It is already hard enough under normal conditions for one's father to die out of the blue. But to have the whole PSC issue erupt after what I was told to be "merely a paperwork issue" a month later was nothing short of hellish. Please don't even try to pretend that you understand how mentally disturbed I was from all this.
--- AcidFlask

(Meekia's note: To understand the context of this quote, please refer to "Why Bond Breakers Left" an article by AcidFlask reproduced below)

3. Tact. Trouble. Terrors?
Some Signs that you're in trouble because of your Blog:
>> When Singapore's biggest bloggers would rather talk about the fact that tomorrow.sg posted your story 2 weeks earlier compared to CNA , rather than actually commenting on your legal problems. Woohoo. We are teh coolness, we are faster than mainstream media!
--- Atypical Singaporean

4. Reactions. Responsibility. Restrain?
yeah man. I mean that mrbrown asshat guy also didn't blog about the paula abdul scandal!!! Can you imagine that? Poor paula! It should be his job wat right? I mean c'monnnnnnn.
caleb 05.09.05 - 6:08 pm
---- some dude named caleb, in response to Atypical Singaporean's insinuation that perhaps "famous bloggers" have certain "responsibilities"

5. Silence. Severance. Severity?
Acidflask could be in the right, he could be in the wrong. But a separate issue is how A*Star chose between clarifying the truth and shutting someone down in a seemingly harsh manner.
Posted by Just an observer* on 7 May, 2005 - 11:36am
--- from comments section in Tomorrow.sg's publication of AcidFlask's email

6. Media. Mediation. Mess?
Throughout the whole fiasco, I think the one big thing the media casually and conveniently overlooked is, is he really guilty of defamation? I've followed the blog for awhile now and while critical and maybe even harsh, I doubt the comments could be construed as anything other than an opinion. Besides, what has mr yeo to fear from a little fish in the big internet pond? Makes you wonder, doesn't it?
Bottom line is, I just don't like how all the news articles automatically assume that there is any salt to the accusations. Grrr.
Posted by Anonymous Coward* on 7 May, 2005 - 11:51am
--- from comments section in Tomorrow.sg's publication of AcidFlask's email

7. Commentary. Comedy?
I was following AcidFlask's thread that was marked for defmation.
What I find really ridiculous about the whole affair is... AcidFlask DID NOT write ANYTHING defamatory about A*STAR in that thread. The defamatory material is in one of the COMMENTS left by a reader.
How ridiculous is THAT ?? I'm not sure how true the comment was, but it must have unnerved Philip Yeo enough to threaten legal action.
Posted by Ken* on 8 May, 2005 - 5:23pm
--- from comments section in Tomorrow.sg's publication of AcidFlask's email

__________________________________________


--------------------------------------------------------------
From: Web Article "Why bond breakers left"
BY AcidFlask (In reply to a comment by a reader named Alvin)
3:11 am Apr 8, 2005

Dear Alvin, I hope it is clear that there is not much space in a tabloid article to give a detailed accounting of the issues involved. The issues behind my bond-breaking are far from black-and-white, and certainly not the petty they-pissed-me-off-i'm-leaving attitude that was thrown in for good sensationalist measure. I won't deny that I was upset, but it was far from the only matter that I had to grapple with before deciding to leave.

I had already stated in the interview that it was not the denial, but the way they did it that was unacceptable. (although this quote was truncated during the final edit.) I can accept their reasons for denying my request, but not having them turn it down after my scholarship officer told me it was OK to go through the whole application process, pay the deposit for housing, buy the plane tickets, and for them to say 'no' ten days before the plane was supposed to leave, and supposedly try to help only after the formal school program had already started.

It is already hard enough under normal conditions for one's father to die out of the blue. But to have the whole PSC issue erupt after what I was told to be "merely a paperwork issue" a month later was nothing short of hellish. Please don't even try to pretend that you understand how mentally disturbed I was from all this. To sort out a ton of paperwork at home, trying to shove grief aside to become the head of a family at the age of 20 and settle matters of estate, then have to deal with personal shit a month later after the scholarship officer who said everything was fine turned around and said you can't go, and by the way I need all this paperwork done yesterday...

Staying on would have been impossible. I would have quite literally gone mad. (I am not exaggerating, PSC's own psychiatrists also agreed that I was under mental duress due to everything that had happened.) That, plus many other personal factors that came into play after my father's death, that made staying in Singapore an untenable proposition. One of the most important one was that my mother is not a Singapore native and has no relatives here. I don't see how it is in my mother's best interests to remain in a foreign land without support from her family. And by no means did I get a free lunch. I paid back everything I was "fed", plus interest.

Yes, I left for selfish reasons, in the sense that I am no longer interested in trying to improve the system, but you have no right to tell me what I have done as the head of the family is not in the best interests of my mother and brother. When push comes to shove, I have no qualms over choosing family over country. The point here is that the whole issue with PSC was one of many that made me decide to leave, possibly permanently; there are other things that made me consider looking for another home. But with regard to scholars and bonds, I feel that I have made a reasonable effort to raise the awareness, both within and without PSC, that there are problems that scholarship agencies should acknowledge and improve on, rather than rely on their lack of transparency to bury the matter without further contemplation. Who is the parliamentary committee rep who is on my side? Do enlighten me.

PSC's shenanigans did play a part in my final decision to leave but it was far from being the only issue concerned. And it was pretty clear that I could not afford to remain bonded to them because of the mental stress that this whole incident engendered. Also it didn't make sense for my family to split up in the way that continuing to work in Singapore would have required. You are right, we are never satifised with what we have. This is but a natural consequence of having personal ambitions and responsibilities, and a desire to improve upon one's current situation. Is that not the point of living?
---------------------------------------------------------------------

From Tomorrow.sg

May 06, 2005
Acidflask replies to CNA report

We received this email from Acidflask, and we reproduce it here in full:
Dear Ms. Tan:
I am shocked and indignant that in your CNA Article dated May 4, not only had you written an article who stand was far from neutral, you had made at least one glaring factual error that is completely unbecoming of any news agency.
I will only address here the error that is relevant to me. For the record that I am a first year graduate student in the chemical physics PhD program at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA. I am not "pursuing [my] Masters in the States". Given that a quick Google search of my name turns up the correct school and relevant information about my program of study, I cannot believe that you did apparently not even bother to verify such a basic fact about myself before running a story about me.

I mention in passing your errorneous un-compounding of the word "Web Logs" instead of "weblogs", the ambiguous use of the phrase "pull off" and your discourtesy in referring to me by "Chen" and not "Mr. Chen", and other sundry choices of English that have only served to lower my impression of your journalistic standards further.

Perhaps it had not occur to you that your last email was sent at 11pm local time on May 3 (10 am May 4 Singapore time), and that given my examination period begins tomorrow, I was likely that I would be unable to reply to your email in time for your article, especially when you did not mention the urgency of your request? Your colleague Shing Yi had contacted me earlier at about 3 am local time and I had just sent off a reply to her at 11 pm. Since your email came later at 6 am local time, I thought it would be reasonable to assume to reply to you (also at about 11 pm), that by mentioning her contacting me, you would at least have asked her if she had received any reply.

Obviously, this did not happen. While I am aware of time pressures that you may face in compiling news reports, I cannot in any way understand how you have apparently neglected to verify the simple fact of what I was studying here in the United States. It is highly unprofessional of you to have published a falsehood in your mass media, where millions of otherwise innocent viewers have become impressed with wrong information which may serve to affect their impression of the situation at hand. Such actions are tantamount to professional negligence and are highly unbecoming of any journalist from any news agency.
Your preposterous actions have permanently tarnished my impression of ChannelNewsAsia and has significantly lowered my impressions of your journalistic standards. The facts that your errorneous statement was further propagated by your colleague Wong Siew Ying in her own article dated May 5, and that both times such an errorneous statement could have made it through the editorial review process, only serve to reinforce my poor impression of your company.

For the record, here is more or less what I had sent to your colleague Shing Yi. I give you permission to use this information as long as it is reported in a neutral and factually accurate fashion, and subject to the following conditions: that I am not to be quoted directly as making the following points, and that paraphrasing them would be acceptable; that you may mention contacting me as long as it is made clear that I did not solicit the interview, and that my sole purpose in contacting you is purely in the interests of factual accuracy, especially in the light of your erroneous reporting; and that you will apologize either in your personal capacity or as a representative of ChannelNewsAsia for making the errorneous remarks.

If you do not agree to make an apology, then I may be forced to consider legal action.
------
First off please note that my pseudonym was "AcidFlask" not "Acid Flask", and that the title of my blog was "caustic.soda".
I am a first-year graduate student in the chemical physics PhD program at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA. Until last week, I had a personal blog on my university account, which as far as I understand is not a violation of school policy.

On April 22 (Friday), I received the first email from Mr. Philip Yeo, chairman of A*STAR, dated 5:44 am GMT-5 which notified me that he had earmarked a post on my blog (#442) for legal action. Over the next three days he sent me a total of eleven emails which were of a threatening and insulting nature, demanding that I remove "all" the posts on my blog or face legal action for defaming A*STAR and himself.

Despite writing to him three times seeking clarification by email, he had refused to elaborate on which specific remarks he had found offensive and reiterated his demand to remove "everything" on my blog. Since my end of semester examinations begin this Friday (May 6), I am sure you can appreciate how I was certainly not in the mood to sift through the 400-odd posts that I had written on my blog and edit or remove anything that was potentially defamatory. Therefore the only choice I had to stem the barrage of emails was to take the whole thing off-line. It was only when I wrote to him, informing him of my taking the blog down that he sent me a final (and twelfth) email last Tuesday, saying that his lawyer would follow up with amendments to my apology posted online. To date I have yet to hear from them so I assume the matter is closed.

I cannot reveal the exact details of the communication as Mr. Yeo had also threatened further litigation regarding the disclosure of some of the contents of the exchange.

As for legal aspects, I have been told that this is a thorny issue as it is not clear whether US law or Singapore law applies. The university is supportive of my right have a blog on my university account, but I can afford neither the time nor the money to fight it out in the courts in order to find out how the legal intricacies come together for my case. After all, I am not here in the US neither to experience its wonderful judicial system nor to take extended leave from it in order to fight a legal battle back home.

I would like to emphasize that I still do not know exactly what I had written that he had found offensive, and that Mr. Yeo had demanded that I remove all posts which mentioned either him or A*STAR, whether directly or indirectly, and cease "running [him] down" on my blog. It was impossible to satisfy such vague demands except by taking the entire blog down altogether.
Out of over 400 posts on my blog, perhaps ten or so mentioned Mr. Yeo or A*STAR by name. All of these posts were opinionated commentary (based on fact!) on policies made by A*STAR. One of my comments was on A*STAR's scholarship system. A*STAR gives out scholarships to prospective undergraduates to study technical majors both in Singapore and in reputable institutions abroad. Last year A*STAR instituted a new policy requiring their scholars to maintain a 3.8 grade point average (between A- and A average). Having been a scholar at one point in time, I felt that this was unnecessarily draconian and even counterproductive, as this would unduly influence students to pick easy classes over more challenging (and hence more enriching) classes, and said so on my blog.

In his previous position as chairman of the Economic Development Board (EDB), Mr. Yeo had also adopted the same strict stance toward such bond-breakers, labeling them as immoral. I can only speculate as to how his ire could be possibly connected to my decision to break my bond (albeit on a scholarship from a different government agency) and a story in The New Paper in early April about my decision to do so. (http://www.tnp.sg/story/0,4136,86038,00.html)
It may also interest you that this was the first time that Mr. Yeo had ever contacted me, and that I had never denied him the right of reply to the conclusions that I had drawn based on publicly available facts. Also, in its 274 days of existence, my blog had seen a grand total f 44,291 visitors, i.e. 162 visitors/day.

I spoke out because as a taxpayer and citizen, I cared enough about the policies at hand to make reasoned opinions about them, and in particular to point out what I considered to be possibly counterproductive side effects. I considered remarks made by persons such as Dr. Vivian Balakrishnan and MM Lee Kuan Yew earlier this year, urging young Singaporeans to speak out, as encouragement to do so. As a young Singaporean who tried to speak out and received such an intimidating response, I am disappointed and discouraged that Mr. Yeo had not attempted to correct any possible misconceptions that I may have had over the interpretation of publicly available information, deciding instead to threaten to sue me for defamation. I cannot say that such actions have promoted the cause of getting young Singaporeans to speak out.
I have delayed considerations of further blogging until the end of my examinations in mid-May.
---
This message has been bcc:ed to forty concerned friends and fellow Singaporean bloggers. Since I apparently cannot trust your organization to make a neutral and factually accurate statement, perhaps I can rely on them to do a better job.
_____________________________________________________________
From Comments section in
Tomorrow.sg regarding above Article

AcidFlask have my full sympathies. However, I think that the above letter, published in full, have the tendency to meander before reaching what in my opinion is the heart of the matter.
The factual inaccuracies (wrong data as opposed to malicious misrepresentation) of CNA and their usage of English is something I feel of lower substance in comparison to the exchange between the blogger and ASTAR. While understanding his unhappiness, the earlier part does impart an impression of a prima donna mincing around adjectives and such.

The main focus should be around the manner which ASTAR responded to the matter - the choice of litigation, instead of refuting factual inaccuracies if the original poster was truly misrepresenting the truth.

ASTAR's belligerent approach have in an instance demolished only one thing - the credibility of PM Lee's talk of the government's interest in engaging the nation in dialogue and debate.
All the talk by the government about a more open society, all the talk about welcoming criticism is moot if various agencies within the government are still inflexible stuck in mindsets of an older age where Singaporeans are pegged as mindless sheep to be herded by their betters.
Posted by Anonymous Craven* on 6 May, 2005 - 10:14am
___________________________________________________
From Mrbrown.com
Scared the World Don't Know, "Singapore decides not to sue blogger"


From Hongkong to Bangkok, from USA to South Africa, from Canada to the UK, the refrain rang out, "Singapore decides not to sue blogger".
Scared the world dunno issit?
Some poor PR department working overtime these few days, I think.
Of course "decides not to sue blogger" lah. The fella apologise until cannot apologise any further liao, with the "unreservedly" all over the place. If sue him after he comply, then he unreservedly apologise so hard for what? That apology was A* grade, ok?
Who knows, Opposition politician Chee Joon Suan may even put you in his next book! Like Daw Aung San Suu Kyi like that.
I know some of you are a little sick of the AcidStar story (eh, no hot chicks with tongue sticking out one ah?), but this is grober buzz leh. Whole world knows "Singapore decides not to sue blogger" now. And we are all feeling safer now, right? Did I forget to tell you that "Singapore decides not to sue blogger"? I did? Ok, good.
Here, for your reading pleasure, the world repeating the same, and almost the same, song:

Canada

South Africa

USA

UK

Yahoo/AFP

Yahoo/The Canadian Press

Malaysia

Hongkong

Asia Media Network

Reuters, India

Sydney Morning Herald, Australia

Channel NewsAsia Singapore

TODAY Singapore

Qatar

India

Canada CNews

Canada CTV

Bernama Malaysia
And if you readers find more, feel free to add links and countries to the comments below. The Great "Singapore decides not to sue blogger" Viral game!

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Meekia ::

I have a politically apathetic girlfriend. She is likely to care more about the shade of pink her new top should be in, insteaed of any other social injustice. She likes to remark, "You go read lah, then tell me about it...hee hee."

But when I do read and share with her passionately what I have learnt...it is hard to tell whether she bothers to listen. I suspect she is too distracted by the comfort that my shoulder and chest offers.

Of course, it is unromantic and really quite stupid to suddenly become a neo-left-wingish-theory-spouting-nerd when your darling is nesting in your right wing...
but can we, for like, this ONE time, talk about something with a little more depth than stuff related to shopping? (like, maybe getting past your ranting on how much you've spent on shoes and bags this month, and move on to consumerist ideologues?)

*sighs * My girlfriend's not the silly-shopper-ConnedConsumer I might have inadvertently portrayed her to be. She's smarter than me, smarter than that...but like too many young Singaporeans our generation, she cannot be bothered to even find out what's is going on, much less formulate a meaningful opinion.

Deep deep apathy is...depressing.

posted by audaciousjoy @ 2:31 PM