From ‘Singapore politicians friend Facebook’, 4 June 2011, article by Tan Weizhen, Today.
One (Sim Ann) disclosed her pregnancy on Facebook while another (Tin Pei Ling) revealed on it that she had resigned from her day job; some also rebutted rumours via the social networking site, while many use it as a sounding board for ideas. To all intents and purposes, Facebook has seemingly become the Singapore politician’s best friend.
“Social media has become a sentiment indicator, almost like a thermometer. Feedback is not filtered and it becomes more transparent,” said Member of Parliament (MP) Zaqy Mohamad.
…”MPs can be likened to celebrities, they are public figures. They are also almost like a brand or business. When brands are being built up, it is not good to mix it with personal details,” said Mr Kelly Choo, co-founder of online brand monitoring firm Brandtology.
Originally used as a weapon of opposition dissent against the ruling party, it seems that the PAP has ingeniously turned social media on its head, and has even gone further to the extent of up-close-and-personal confessions. If you think about it, it’s the only job that pays you a huge salary to spend time logging on updating your Facebook status and fending off trollers. It’s interesting to trace the history of how this beast was first created to expose the PAP, furiously targeted by government watchdogs in an attempt to control its sprawling menace, only to be adopted and domesticated into a genial giant by visionaries like George Yeo. What they’ve essentially done, with curious success, is tactfully make the Internet ‘not so cool’ anymore.
Sintercom was among the first to lead the anti-establishment charge via new media, emerging in 1994 and recently renamed to ‘NewSintercom‘, with fears of it being shut down thanks to the Singapore Broadcasting Authority in 2001 (Who saved Sintercom? 18 July 2001, Today). Five years after Sintercom in 1999, the website Thinkcentre was born, and remains updated till this day, though it needs some serious cosmetic surgery if it wants to get people surfing its pages again. The web design remains stalwartly Atari and lo-fi with its stern, antiquated Courier fonts, without any ‘Likes’ or ‘Tweet this article’ function. The ThinkCentre logo even bears a suspicious resemblance to that of Hertz. Giving readers an impression of being too ‘boringly intellectual’ just by looking at its main page, it’s no wonder today’s dissenters seek sensationalist solace in the likes of Temasek Review.
Think Retro
Not to feel left out of cyberspace, the Young PAP responded with their own website in 1995, revamped in 2009 followed by the inevitable Facebook ‘Like’ page. Next came ‘Generation Blog’ in the early 2000′s, with George Yeo leading the charge of the blog brigade contributing posts in 2006 ( Come blog and chat with us, ministers, 6 Sept 2006, Today) to the now dead Ephraim.blogspot.com (created in 2002 by a Young PAP member named Ephraim Loy). Here’s an excerpt from the first post by Mr Yeo as ‘guest blogger’, with startling intimacy that would portend this current trend of MPs divulging personal touchy-feely information on Facebook. So now we know, that on Aug 30, 2006, our ousted minister and Presidential hopeful, had fish and chips by the lake. Oh my god, He’s just like ONE OF US! Nevermind that he must have initially thought that blogging is like sending a telegram, judging by the number of ‘stops’ peppering the paragraph below.
We had dinner on the wooden deck by the lake. It was a cool evening with a light breeze blowing. The food was good. I had fish and chips. So did three others. The rest ordered steak, lamb shank and chicken. The boss, Christine, came round to chat. Quite a lady. One child, another on the way. She served us complimentary aloe vera jelly dessert. She has another outlet at Sungei Buloh Nature Reserve. I told her that we liked Bliss and would be back.
It was a natural extension into the Facebook community for Mr Yeo eventually, and the rest of it, like they say, is history. So far, we’ve had MPs making bad jokes, ask for campaign donations, flout Cooling Off Day off rules and clarifying that they’re not related to Lee Kuan Yew. Maybe someone should make George Yeo Minister of Responsible Blogging. The microblog-like ‘Facebook page’ has since taken over the traditional profile format, only because it doesn’t show how popular you are based on the number of friends you’ve got. As for those still with the original Facebook page, Here’s a quick, random rundown of who’s hot on Facebook based on number of friends (as of 6 June 2011). You’d be surprised to know who’s on top.
1.Teo Ser Luck (5001 friends)
2. Khaw Boon Wan (4999 friends)
3. George Yeo (4992 friends)
4. Teo Chee Hean (4907 friends)
5. K Shanmugam (4552 friends)
6. Lim Swee Say (4107 friends)
7. Irene Ng (2832 friends)
8. Tharman Shanmugaratnam (26 friends…I beat you, Tharman!)
?. Vivian Balakrishnan, Yaacob Ibrahim, Lui Tuck Yew (all hidden from view, so much for being ‘open and transparent’!)
Filed under: 2000s, 2011, Bloggers, Fun and games, Politicians Tagged: | facebook, george yeo, Politicians
