Nowadays in this modem era, media is so common everywhere that is used for mass communicating with people all around the world, i felt that media can be a scary tools that influence people and change their belief on certain things.
In my personal opinion, i definitely feel that it matters alot on who owns the media, especially when it concerns a country and running a country, it comes to Government vs Private company. Singapore has strict censorship that are owned by Government alone, but there are some Singaporeans feeling that they have been stripped off from their freedom of speech, and tend to go against this rule to make it more “democratic” like in the western countries like America, however what these Singaporeans doesn’t know are the consequences of the freedom of speech. I personally feel that they are just blinding believing in freedom of speech without knowing why Singapore tends to have strict censorship on certain sensitives stuffs.
Firstly, Singapore can be so safe even though we are the smallest in the world, partly thanks to the strict censorship that helps to prevent conflicts. The media in Singapore shows and bring out our Singaporean bonding and spirit to unite together against others that are a threat instead of internal conflict. We respect and support each other even we are from difference races and harmony is what we emphasis in Singapore especially we have quite many difference races around us. We have to admit that when it comes to different races bonding, Singapore is consider the top due to our racial harmony.
Secondly, the strict censorship helps to government to control panic and fear in case of false news being spread throughout the world / in the country. This is really essential in Singapore since Singaporeans are easily panic when there are huge news that break out, for example war, to stabilize a country and stand firmly even when facing emergency break out, first of all the government have to stop the citizens in the country from panic.
Thirdly, as Singapore is the smallest country out there, security measures and defenses are totally important for us to defend ourselves against other countries and terrorists around the world like Isis, but its because of our strict censorship, it is impossible for them to find any information on our county security. I used to be on Intelligence department during my Army days, and they are real strict when it comes to security, all are classified with strict monitoring.
If compared to other countries like Finland where i done some research on, Finland media are mostly owned by private company and their government had total less than 50% control of the media, Citizens of Finland are given the rights for free speech, the right of assembly, and the right to publish uncensored texts or pictures. However racism and plagiarism were seen and common at their media, private company can also make exaggerating claims about their products just to attract people to notice and buy their products, this is dangerous since the products might not be as good as they claim or the products might include some dangerous ingredients that might be harmful to humans.
Therefore, although there are disadvantages to strict censorship, however i feel that Government owning the media in Singapore with strict censorship is necessary to keep the country safe and well progress.
Reference:
http://futureofworking.com/11-biggest-pros-and-cons-of-censorship/
Leon (小鬼） 