MOM Statement on the Singapore Democratic Party’s application to cancel the Correction Directions issued under the Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act

1. Three Correction Directions (“CDs”) were issued on 14 December 2019 in respect of: (a) an article on the Singapore Democratic Party (“SDP”) website dated 8 June 2019 (the “Article”); (b) a post on the SDP Facebook page dated 30 November 2019 (the “SDP FB post”); and (c) a Facebook post sponsored by the SDP published on 2 December 2019 (the “sponsored post”). Both the SDP FB post and the sponsored post contain links to the Article, which article contains a false statement of fact. The sponsored post additionally contains a misleading graphic.
2. MOM received the SDP’s application to cancel the CDs (the “Application”) on 3 January 2020. After careful consideration, the Minister for Manpower is of the view that the Application does not provide sufficient grounds for the cancellation of the CDs. The Minister for Manpower has therefore decided to refuse the Application. The SDP has been notified of the Minister’s decision.
3. Separately, we wish to clarify that the SDP’s assertion that the Minister is applying the Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act to the Article retroactively is misconstrued. In particular, the Article was hyperlinked in the SDP FB post and sponsored post, hence it was actively being publicised as late as 2 December 2019.
4. For details on the CDs issued against the false statements of fact, please refer to https://www.gov.sg/factually/content/corrections-on-falsehoods-posted-by-SDP.