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NUS students have all but condemned an online hoax by a former local political party member who claimed that Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew had suffered a heart attack.
Internet forums and blogs were set afire on March 6 after a blog post written by Gopalan Nair, a former member of the opposition Workers’ Party, said that Lee was in intensive care at the Singapore General Hospital.
Nair’s blog, published in the United States where he now resides and is a citizen of, also claimed that investors had shifted funds overseas and that “protesters had begun assembling in small pockets” in various locations around Singapore. Nair later admitted that it was a hoax in a follow-up blog posting on March 7.
According to the March 7 blog post, it was a “deliberate attempt to highlight how tenuous Singapore really is with all power in the island vested in one man.”
In an email reply to the NUSpaper, Nair said Singapore was so dependent on Lee's leadership that he wondered if the nation would collapse if Lee were to die.
"That is why I wanted to see if that would happen, a total collapse, in the event of his death. And true enough, even though I was not any official newspaper, even my article caused great upset in the island," he wrote.
Including cries of “Why did he do it,” NUS undergraduates have expressed strong reactions to the hoax.
Tan Wei Li, a third-year statistics major, said Nair was “trying to be funny and testing how Singaporeans would react.”
“I think that he was just having fun in his own way. Maybe another reason is that he wanted to see how Singaporeans would react to unconfirmed news.”
Teo Yong Ernn, fourth-year communications and new media major, said that alternative media in Singapore would suffer a loss in credibility.
“I think this might affect the reputation of other alternative media sites like The Online Citizen or The Temasek Review,” Teo said.
“Now that the Internet offers such an easy way for everyone to create their own content and upload it, we should be even more responsible and not post such things.”
But this incident has also highlighted Singaporeans’ respect for Lee.
“You can see that deep in their hearts, he really matters to them. He’s like this key figure who spearheads the country,” Teo said.
Some students also thought the hoax would unite Singaporeans. Gerald Sim, a fourth-year computing student, said Singaporeans would set aside differences in their efforts to find the truth.
“He is a recognised figure in Singapore politics. Such rumours might work to bond the various ethnicities as they work together to find out more about the truth,” he said.
“It might cause concern among people. Singaporeans will be concerned whether he is okay or not, thus becoming a talking point for most conversations.”
Jody Poh, fourth-year communications and new media major, feared that it might result in more stringent Internet regulation in the future.
“Now that everyone is on social media, and the various statutory boards have new media units, the government might take this opportunity to be stricter on how the public makes use of social media.”
She added, “Of course, everyone will be sad if anything really happens, but we have to move on with our lives and face the truth. We have to put it all behind us.”
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