Internet 'filters' come on line in Singapore

Internet 'filters' come on line in Singapore

SINGAPORE (AFP): Singapore started enforcing tough new rules
Sunday to block pornographic and other controversial content on
the Internet.

The city-state's three Internet access providers had been
given a Sunday deadline to install systems to censor "undesirable
sites" broadcast from overseas, so as to shield subscribers from
smut as well as racist or subversive material.

Access to so-called "hot sites" with explicit sexual content
was being strictly controlled, subscribers said.

Those who tried to access blacklisted adult sites were told,
"the site you requested is not accessible."

Subscribers who logged on to SingNet, the biggest of the
three, were met by a message which read: "If you can't access
overseas sites, please configure your browser to use proxy
servers."

Proxy servers are special computers that service providers
have identified as the most effective means of controlling access
to foreign-based sites containing pornographic material and other
excesses.

All of the more than 100,000 Internet subscribers in Singapore
have been directed to adjust their computer software so that they
enter cyberspace only through the proxy servers.

The system would check a user's request to enter an Internet
site against a list of banned sites before granting access. They
would also store locally a database of often-accessed and
acceptable foreign material to speed up access.

Informed sources said the authorities had already identified
and banned about 100 sites.

The new system is in line with a regulatory bulwark unveiled
in July by the Singapore Broadcasting Authority (SBA) to shield
citizens, particularly the young, from pornography and check
political and religious content on the Internet.

Cyberway, the newest of the three Internet access providers,
already had such a system in place. Pacific Internet and SingNet
have been engaged for the past month in adjusting their networks
to conform to the new rules.

The island of three million people is the first country in
Southeast Asia to put in place a regulatory framework to check
abuses on the Internet, a vast repository of information.

"Like all technology, Internet is a two-edged sword," SBA
chief executive Goh Liang Kwang said earlier this month. "There
are useful information as well as garbage on the Internet. Some
are racist, discriminatory, even obscene."

Officials said the regulatory framework would evolve with
technological advances.

The rules ban pornography, depiction of violence, nudity and
sex and propagation of sexual "perversions" such as
homosexuality, lesbianism and pedophilia.

Content which denigrates any race or religion, promotes
deviations such as "satanism," jeopardizes public security or
national defense, undermines public confidence in the
administration of justice or brings the government into hatred or
contempt will also not be allowed.

The government's moves to tame the Internet come amid the
medium's soaring popularity in Singapore, where within a year's
time the number of subscribers has grown 650 percent to more than
100,000.

Officials have projected three-digit growth in Internet
subscriptions at least for the next two or three years.

The authorities say the regulations are intended to encourage
"responsible use of the Internet" and its "healthy development,"
ruling out any adverse impact on Singapore's effort to position
itself as a regional information hub.