Asia Centre will launch its newest report "Political Hate Sites in Singapore: Flourishing without Repercussions." 

The report explains how hate sites and internet brigades seek to maliciously negate the criticism of public officials and policy in Singapore. Targets of hate sites include activists, bloggers, civil society organisations, independent media outlets and journalists, human rights lawyers, and opposition political parties and politicians. Singapore, a one-party dominated state, has regularly updated and passed new legislation that criminalises criticism of its public officials and policies, leaving only a narrow margin for expressing dissenting views within the established legal boundaries. As a result, the government can repress opposition voices through the tight policing of political expression both offline and online. This includes blocking, removing, and de-legitimising critical online content, as well as prosecuting content creators and distributors. This leads to the manipulation of the public narrative and fosters widespread self-censorship.

Despite these measures, there is an underbelly of critical voices that continue to occupy the extremely limited space allowed by the law. In the last few years, these voices have experienced an increase in targeted attacks and hate speech by pro-government hate sites and internet brigades. Yet, public officials and technology companies remain silent about these hate sites and the coordinated inauthentic behaviour of internet brigades. Meanwhile, current laws and content moderation policies to protect them remain inadequate and insufficient.