Uproar over hoax as Lee Kuan Yew remains in critical condition

Former Singapore prime minister Lee Kuan Yew remains critically ill, the Prime Minister’s Office said in a statement today, as the police warned against spreading falsehoods to deceive the public.

The police were responding to media queries over a police report filed by the Prime Minister’s Office over a hoax involving screengrabs of a fake PMO webpage announcing that Lee died, which went viral on Wednesday night, duping several international media outlets in the process, which later apologised for putting out erroneous tweets and reports.

“We take a very stern view against anyone who doctors a government website to spread false information to deceive the public. We will spare no effort to bring them to task. We also advise the public not to spread falsehoods,” said Assistant Commissioner of Police Melvin Yong, the director of the police public affairs department.

Lee has been warded at Singapore General Hospital since February 5 with severe pneumonia. On February 28, the PMO updated that his condition had improved slightly but this week the PMO reported a deterioration in his health on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Meanwhile, Singapore prime minister Lee Hsien Loong “would like to thank the public for their support and good wishes”, the PMO added in its statement today.

The fake webpage has drawn widespread backlash from the public. Retiree Teo Kwee Lock, 67, who was among the stream of Singaporeans who visited SGH yesterday to show support for Lee, said the people who spread such hoaxes and rumours are “horrible”. “They don’t respect Lee Kuan Yew has done for him... I really feel sorry for all these people,” he said.

Denise Tan, 29, a marketing manager said when she was shown a picture of the screengrab by her friend, they both teared up, thinking it was real.

“Then my brother messaged me to tell it that it’s a hoax and I was so angry! I hope whoever did it is arrested for doing such a thing,” she said.

Member of Parliament Vikram Nair (Sembawang GRC) said he was initially taken in by the “announcement” as well.

“The hoax was done in very bad taste. The challenge would be to finding whoever did this and prosecuting them. There are adequate laws in place to deal with them,” said Nair, who sits on the Government Parliamentary Committee for Communications and Information.

He added: “Right now all the updates about (Lee) being critically ill, people are all expecting the worse.”

Under the Penal Code, it is an offence to cheat by pretending to be another person. It is also an offence – forgery – to make a fake document or electronic record with the intention of causing damage or injury to the public or to any person, among other things.

Zaqy Mohamad (Chua Chu Kang GRC), who is chairman of the Communications and Information GPC said the hoax was not only “grossly insensitive” to the family of Lee, but also a case of someone impersonating a government website. “That would have to be dealt with harshly,” he said.

He also noted that the PMO website was down when he went to check on the hoax. “We should look at our (cyber) infrastructure and we shouldn’t have a down time especially in time like these. We need greater resilience on our information dissemination platforms,” he said.

Nanyang Technological University’s Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information professor Ang Peng Hwa said in this case, the incident was handled quite quickly.

“There are people who want to see how far their stuff can go viral – it’s just a cheap thrill and it happens all the time.” he said.

Such incidents cannot be prevented, but they can be “minimised”, such as by going to the police, as the PMO did. “It is a deterrence measure to say that this is disrespectful behaviour,” Prof Ang said.

MP Baey Yam Keng (Tampines GRC) said the public also needs to be alert. “People should take the effort to understand how all these things can be made up, and not fall victim to such malicious intentions,” he said.

Agreeing, technology consultant Alfred Siew added: “For newsmakers, coming up with timely information is the best way, but of course that’s subject to the circumstances.” – TODAY Online, March 20, 2015.