Impact of Internet on General Election likely to be
studied after polls
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/singaporelocalnews/view/206742/1/.html
SINGAPORE :
The impact of the Internet at this General Election is
likely to be looked at by the relevant ministry after the
polls.
Information Communications and the Arts Minister Dr Lee Boon Yang
said this is to assess the scale at which the new media, like blogs
and podcasts, were used to influence views and shape
opinions.
Dr Lee said this after his Jalan Besar Group Representation
Constituency (GRC) team toured Queen's Street market as part of
their campaigning on Friday.
The People's Action Party (PAP) team said it was looking forward to
good support from voters, because of its track record over the past
five years.
There are also plans to complete upgrading at seven markets and
food centres.
More than 4,000 households will also stand to benefit from lift
upgrading.
Dr Lee said, "We have a concrete, definite plan for people in Jalan
Besar for them to assess whether they should support us or not...On
the other hand, the SDA (Singapore Democratic Alliance) turns up
and says they are capable of running a town council, they make all
kinds of offers, freebies, low cost this, that, but when asked
where are they going to get the funds to run such services to
provide such amenities, silence, dead silence.
"So they have never thought through their ideas. These are just
electioneering slogans, slogans to distract the attention of the
people. But I'm confident, we're confident that Jalan Besar voters
can see through this smoke, and get to the hard facts and truth of
(all this) to see who can deliver and who cannot."
His running mate Environment and Water Resources Minister Dr Yaacob
Ibrahim also explained the rationale for the water conservation tax
which will stay on for now - despite calls by the opposition to
abolish this.
He said, "At the end of the day, we want to diversify our water
resources. And therefore we have our four national taps.
Desalination will remain high in comparison to imported water. But
if we remove the WCT (water conservation tax), people will use more
water and we will have to incur higher costs to build more
desalination plans. So it will remain because we want Singaporeans
to understand that water is precious."
I smell the beginnings of new policies aimed at controlling the
fallout from the online community.
If the Not-WP think they can control the Internet, they must be
nuts.
