And this was what Kum Hong said when The Void Deck made a cold call email to him about the interview thingy. LOL

"What I do find amusing is that this is an anonymous e-mail without a name in the header or a sign-off. No sarcasm there -- I really am amused, considering some of the questions. And the only clues to where this might appear are in the subject-heading and in the BTW paragraph at the end! "

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So. In ancient BBS fashion, my responses are below your questions. (Yes I used to frequent BBSes way back when.)

1. So you had a previous blog before when you were in Rajah and Tann? How was that blog different from the current one? We guess that it was more personal rather than outright "political" compared to your current blog? Did you also participate in local forums like Sammyboy or Hardwarezone? Many a local blogger has learnt how to cross swords and build a thick skin in such exciting forums! If you did, it was presumably under a nick? Was it a cool nick?

It was entirely personal and somewhat anonymous. For the most part I stayed away from politics. I used to participate in s.c.s and s.c.s.m -- that is perhaps a sign of my antiquity in Net years. In fact I think I was the vote-taker for the creation of s.c.s.m, although I really can't remember for sure. I still remember the days of lynx and tin, while freeloading on my sister's leonis account because I was in NS not NUS, and I continued through my own time in NUS. After I started working, I simply didn't have the time to actively participate or even read online forums, so I never did participate in Sammyboy or HWZ although I occasionally visited them.

And I have always used my real name to post, never a nick. I do not agree with being anonymous online unless it is absolutely necessary, eg. to avoid injury or harm. I believe that one should stand behind one's statements, and that one should not make any statements that one is not able or willing to stand behind, unless the inability or reluctance is due to overwhelmingly good reasons such as to protect a minor's identity, to avoid a real likelihood of personal injury (eg. in naming a loanshark), etc. -- and the vague fear of theoretical reprisal is, to me, not an overwhelmingly good reason.

I don't know if Google Groups' s.c.s and s.c.s.m archives go far back enough to verify this, but you can try doing a search there.

2. Did the other NMPS or MPs say anything about your blog? Anybody passed comments and joked that you are now one of THEM? In fact, do the other NMPs have blogs? Would you encourage them to blog?

Nobody has said anything about my blog. I am not aware of whether the other NMPs have blogs. And I think the blogging phenomenon is sufficiently mainstream and well-known that they are able to decide for themselves, whether they want to do so. It is really, and should be, a personal choice.

3. OK. I can't help it given the current mood. I have to ask you straight - what do you think of political parties pushing their party interests anonymously (I would say connivingly, sneakily, but well, some people say toma-toe, some say tomay-toe)? On one hand the PAP heaps scorn on anonymous bloggers, yet the PAP has recruited its own army of anonymous PAP bloggers to further the PAP's interests via the Internet? Come to think of it, do you think the whole anonymous PAP in the Internet campaign was a leak or not?

I think that's ironic, to say the least. (Or perhaps I am misusing the term "ironic".) Having said that, it's pretty obvious that any post by a person who is identified as a PAP member or supporter will immediately be dismissed, regardless of the merits of the post. That actually speaks volumes about 2 things. And here is where I get into a bit of a rant.

Firstly, it is a sad indictment of the local Internet community, that posts are often assessed based on the identity of the poster and not the merits of the post. If the local Internet community (and here, I was tempted to say "we" but then I'm not sure if I qualify anymore as a member of the local Internet community, whatever that is) sees itself and wants to position itself as being the last, best hope for free speech in Singapore, which seems to me to be the case, then it should zealously work towards advancing that position and practise what it preaches.

Instead of dismissing so-called "PAPists" (I believe that is the term in vogue) outright because of who they are, the local Internet community should engage them in frank discussion and debate them and rebut what they say using rational, reasoned arguments. That's what I tried to do when I was active on s.c.s and s.c.s.m. That is, after all, what a culture of free speech should ideally be about. You do get rubbish speech even in liberal societies like the US, but that is balanced by serious, responsible speech. In the local Internet community, serious, responsible speech is the exception and very far from the norm.

Yes, very often if not always, engaging them seriously will eventually result in a circular debate where you state your position and they state theirs. (I happen to believe that it is incredibly difficult and rare to persuade people to change their preconceived notions of the truth through argument -- but in any such public debate, it's clear that the aim is not to convince the other side, but rather to persuade the undecided neutrals.) But the attempt should still be made, because rational, responsible debate helps to develop and grow the local Internet community and win credibility for it. Otherwise, it will forever continue to be regarded by the offline mainstream as unreliable and distorted, something to be dismissed.

That cannot be positive. Surely the common objective is or should be to develop the local Internet community to such a stage that it is seen by all stakeholders, whether or not they are online, as a credible alternative medium. Well, I'm sorry, but that is not the case right now. If you spend all your time on the Internet, you would probably have thought that the Opposition would've won quite a few more seats than it did in GE2006, simply because of the prevalence of anti-PAP sentiment online. But we all know that didn't happen. So how reflective is the local Internet community of the wider Singapore society? The same thing happened in 1997, which for me was the first GE in an environment when the public could access and was accessing the Internet. I can't comment on 2001 because I didn't really spend much time online at that time.

I have even seen a posting on SG_Review asserting that I was a fictitious entity created by the Government for ghostwritten articles on TODAY, simply because of how I concluded a piece last year about being the considerations running through my mind as a voter in Ang Mo Kio. That is how knee-jerk the vast majority of politically-inclined Internet posters seem to be. It is almost as if most politically-inclined Internet posters are the anti-PAP mirror-images of the dogmatic propagandists they perceive "PAPists" to be.

And it is obviously because of this, that the PAP has decided to go the anonymous route.

The second point I would make is that the PAP should actually consider why they have such a credibility problem on the Internet. In fact, let me recount this ST piece I read last year, about Mr Brown's "tur kwa" podcast. The piece started by recounting the story of a PAP supporter (a SUPPORTER, mind you) who confronted a PAP MP (one of the ladies, I can't really remember whom though) about a rumour she had heard, and believed, that the PAP was cracking down on mee pok sellers, or some patent absurdity like that derived from the podcast that was evidently a joke. The exact rumour isn't really important; what is important was that this PAP supporter took it so seriously. I was and remain completely fascinated by this story. What does that say about how the public perceives the PAP?

So maybe the PAP needs to reconsider its fundamental approach to engaging the public, to public debate itself. Quite apart from the issue of anonymity, that seems to be the more important question -- and if it is something that can be rectified, and their image improved, then maybe it won't be necessary to rely on online anonymity.

I would only add that I don't think such a strategy will be effective in the long-term. Given the prevalent anti-PAP sentiment on the Internet, I don't think it would've been effective even if the story had not broken. I'm also not in a position to comment on whether it was a leak or not.

4. Moving away from that episode, your posting on 10.2.2007 does suggest that you were slightly put off by the way some things were reported in ST's snapshot of your political interests. You are certainly correct, the Internet has allowed people to clarify and refute what was portrayed in the media, assuming that people read the Internet and can discern that it has its gems and grime. What's your feel on the media's depiction of local Internet commentators?

Yes, I was "slightly put off", as you say.

I think the media has a self-evident self-interest in "spinning" certain things. It's not even necessarily a political thing -- at its most fundamental level, the mass media has to put forward an interesting story in a simple way, so as to attract readers/viewers. That's just the way the business model works. So, quite apart from any political bias that may or may not exist, the media will strive to put a spin on a story to attract interest. From my own experience, it's true of ST, TNP, TODAY, it's true of the mass media, period.

And when it comes to the Internet, well, I've already said that there is a perception in the offline world that the online world is some kind of cesspool. So the offline media (which I suppose can be equated with the MSM), when catering to this offline world, will have an inherent tendency to play up that perception. That will result in a certain spin in offline/MSM stories.

But you know, although I was "slightly put off", I recognise that that's just how it works. If you want to play the game, then you should know what the rules are. Internet commentators can always choose not to speak to the MSM, and rely on their Internet platforms to speak their mind. That will inherently limit the amount of spin that can be put on any story. So in my mind, I know that there will always be such a risk when I participate in or engage the mass media, and I just deal with it when the story doesn't really come out the way I would like it to.

5. This caveat at the bottom of your posting on 10.2.2007 is hilarious!

And it suggests that your future blog postings might have a legal angle to it and/or that you think ST might try to make an example of you! Any other legalese stuff you can share now about blog postings and defamation as that is what bugs most bloggers?

Re future blog postings having a legal angle -- maybe, maybe not. The blog is a work in progress. I don't really want it to be a legal blog, I spend enough hours of the day being a lawyer as it is.

As for ST -- well, I think the day before the article came out, there was this little house ad by SPH on the stock quotes page, about infringing SPH's intellectual property. And that's really a reference to a (little-known) program that the SPH has, to enforce its IPRs against people who reproduce SPH articles, and in particular on the Internet. When I was in private practice, I had acted in such a case. I've also from time to time received informal requests for assistance from people who received letters of demand from SPH requesting them to pay licence fees for posting SPH articles about themselves on their own sites.

Now, before 1 January 2005, it would've been tough fighting such a demand, even if the article was about yourself. But the law changed on 1 January 2005, when we got a US-style general fair dealing defence, and that is the defence I was referring to in that caveat. And I would argue that posting an article about oneself, on a non-commercial site by and about oneself, must certainly be a fair dealing that is protected by law. It's a little less clear if it is a commercial site, but I think it should still be a fair dealing.

So I put that caveat there to make that position clear. That's all there is to it.

As for Law 101 for bloggers... there's actually been quite a few of those sessions. I think Bloggers.SG 2005 had such a session. (Disclosure: one of the panellists was my colleague then. The other panellist was an ex-colleague.) Like I have said above -- a simple rule of thumb is to say only what you can or are willing to publicly stand behind. That does mean some things can't be said. But then again, ask yourself: what exactly would you get out of saying those things?

6. Maybe the NMPs can form their own group blog. Or maybe not. But you might entrench this trend that Steve Chia and some others have experimented with to some degree.

A blog is indeed a nifty tool to publish your parliament speeches and even get reactions on it. But of course, some of the comments can be from anonymous PAP, WP, SDP, SDA people. Heh. What are your OB markers? What are the things you would like to post on but can't for a variety of reasons :)

If I can tell you, then surely I can blog about it! So I won't answer that last bit. Nice try. :)

I don't really have any interest in a group blog. I think blogging is quite personal, we are all people with strong views (we have to be, to put ourselves forward as NMPs), and we all have different amounts of time that we can devote to this. So a group blog might not be the best idea, because some will invariably post more than others, and then the others might feel compelled to post simply out of competitive reasons. That's not what blogging should be about.

I had a bit of a struggle with comments. I initially disabled comments, to avoid any hassle about nonsense being posted on this blog. But then I thought again -- free speech is one of the things I'm going to try to advocate in Parliament. I really should walk the walk instead of just talking the talk. So I decided to permit comments, for all registered Blogger users -- that will deter most "bo-liao" comments, but is such a low and minimal barrier (especially now that one can use a Google account to sign-in to Blogger) that someone with a serious desire to comment will not be deterred. Other than that, people are welcome to be anonymous if they so desire. I've already made known my view about that.

7. What's your take on the local bloggers as an evolving community in debating issues?

Other than the spiel in response to question #3 (and local bloggers are obviously a very prominent part of the local Internet community), I don't have a take on local bloggers as an evolving community in debating issues, because I don't really follow blogs that closely. I read a few blogs now and then, but it's really quite rare. Otherwise, I rely on what is forwarded to me, whether by friends or on mailing lists.

8. Anything else you want to say to the Internet community and especially those who would pop by at your blog?

Er. No.

The Void Deck likes to thank again Kum Hong for being sporting in allowing the interview. Cheers dude!