Out of all the countries listed here with strong censorship in the media, Singapore is by far the least corrupt, ranking as the 3rd least corrupt country in the world (Corruption Perception Index) compared to China and Russia, ranked 87 and 138 respectively. But despite this, Singapore still has strong media censorship, ranking 151 out of 180 countries for press freedom. However, this censorship could get much stronger in the future. On April 25th, a new bill, the Online Falsehoods and Manipulation bill, was passed which gives the government the full power to determine what is fake and censor it. Cherian George, an author with a Ph.D. in Communications from Stanford University, mentions "the troubling tendency in government to up the ante by accusing critics of lying, fabrication, having a political agenda, and so on" which is already happening in Singapore. This new bill could make that process much easier for the government as they will be able to instantly deem any criticism fake news. By censoring any criticism, citizens will not hear about it, so they will be more supportive of the government. There are also indirect effects of the bill too; this may further strengthen the culture of self-censorship in Singapore as people will be afraid to speak out against the government out of fear of the consequences.
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Image showing how much freedom Singaporeans have on the internet by Freedom House
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