It appears that a great deal of people are starting to practice self-censorship, worried that they will infuriate the school authorities because they said something seemingly bad about the school or particular people in the school. This people ranges from the big-size type Bingyuan to timid-looking but sarcastic Ruiyang.
I guess there should be harm making personal attacks in real life. We do it everyday. Except it varies from verbal insults to discrimination or whatsoever. Most importantly, it does not make an impact on the school, the discriminated person, or the person who insults. The punishment should not go beyond feeling guilty and worrying about losing friends or popularity. The whole idea of blogging in the first place is about freedom (of expression), if we exercise such restrains on ourselves, then we should be thinking twice before starting a blog.
Ultimately, the blog acts as a vent for frustration. Why be frustrated about venting frustrations? Why should we be practising self-censorship when our words do not even cause racial riots or aything paramount to that magnitude. I admit sometimes we get political – and I mean school politics or whatever you like to call it (don’t worry, I am a Singaporean). Yeah, right – you would say; then ask about what happened to those criticised for the content of their blogs online and even sued by the authorities. Well, those guys just aren’t prepared enough to embrace the spirit of freedom in Singapore. They have to get an extremely political correct secretary to help with a little vetting before they can proceed to publish their thoughts online.
Well, it is still quite encouraging to see a huge chunk of Singaporeans practising their freedom, in their very own way. It is interesting, though not a great breakthrough. At least you don’t have to pay for the news you receive there, unlike Straits Times Interactive, which is ridiculosuly collecting money from thei readers – even from the print subcribers, for logging on to their website to obtain softcopies of the ‘somewhat excellent’ and accurate news reports. It is not as if Singapore has many news sources to start with, for comparison. It does even have enough news for these sources anyway.