Singapore voyeurism site STOMP faces public backlash as citizens call for its shutdown

Singapore residents appear to have had enough of STOMP, a “citizen journalism” website run by Singapore’s largest newspaper The Straits Times. A petition calling for its shutdown has recently been started and has since seen widespread support.

The petition was started on Sunday evening, April 6. As of Monday morning, April 14, the number has swelled to 22,502 supporters, with the petition gaining momentum on social media channels and news outlets.

This discontent has been simmering over time – many netizens have voiced their outrage over the numerous gaffes and insensitive articles made by the site over the past years. The petition was started by Robin Li, who is attempting to unify opposing voices against STOMP.

The petition singles out two recent incidents to highlight their case against STOMP. The first case was with regards to their report of an NSman – an army conscript in local parlance – not giving up his seat to an elderly woman, which was revealed to be fabricated by a reader.

(See: Straits Times’ parent company loses 25% in profits, launches $80m New Media Fund)

The second incident involves a photograph taken by Samantha Francis, who was a content producer at STOMP. The then 23-year-old had supposedly taken a picture of an MRT train moving with one set of its doors open, which was also found out to be false. The content producer was later fired.

The petition adds that STOMP users have been contributing fake stories to the detriment of other citizens, victimizing army conscripts, encouraging cyber-bullying, and invading the privacy of citizens.

The petitioner wrote: “STOMP refuses to acknowledge the false stories, and chooses to go ahead and publish for the sake of ‘citizen journalism’ … how does this educate generations after generations when there are much important news that netizens can find time to understand rather than spending hours on STOMP just reading and contributing fabricated stories?”

He further charged STOMP with the failure to rectify and set guidelines for netizens contributing stories, leading to fabricated content.

The Media Development Authority (MDA) of Singapore has since responded with the following statement:

“You may be aware of an ongoing petition to shut down STOMP. While it is not for MDA to influence the editorial slant of sites, we would, as the media regulator of Singapore, take firm action if any Internet content provider is in breach of the Internet Code of Practice. These typically cover content that is against public interest and/or content that promotes racial and religious hatred or intolerance.

“As users of the Internet and as part of our efforts to promote responsible online behaviour, netizens can and should continue signalling to content providers the standards that we expect of them, so that they can in turn heed these calls. Should you believe that STOMP, together with other class-licensed and individually licensed sites merit stronger regulation, we invite you to propose how the standards should be tightened.

“Let’s build a healthy online environment together.”

MDA’s attempt to solicit feedback from the public with regards to “how the standards should be tightened” has seen a largely negative and hostile response from netizens. You can view the statement and the resulting comments on MDA’s Facebook page.

The Straits Times has not responded to our request for comments.

This article was updated on Monday morning, April 14, with the latest number of supporters and MDA’s response.

The post Singapore voyeurism site STOMP faces public backlash as citizens call for its shutdown appeared first on Tech in Asia.