Amos Yee continues to ensure publicity for himself even in remand with his 'mysterious' Facebook updates

Trolololololololololo.

Belmont Lay| June 21, 12:23 PM

Update, June 21, 2015, 11pm: This article asserted that ST deleted its news article about Amos Yee's "mysterious" Facebook updates while in remand, after perhaps realising the teenage blogger was trolling them.

This is only partially correct at most -- as ST had deleted (or made one version of the article inaccessible) but left two other versions online and accessible.

The issue then is that there were up to three duplicate articles for the same Amos Yee story, plus a complete lack of updates or editor's notes informing readers what portions of a story has been amended or which is the latest version.

Moreover, it appears ST has since mended the broken link to their original article after we pointed out their supposed deletion. I have no other screenshot proof to show which link was initially broken, other than the photo below, or what time the broken link was eventually fixed.

So, to ST's credit, the supposedly deleted article could still be found here and here.

Nonetheless, herein lies the confusion. The same ST article was republished with up to three different URLs, with no explanation why this is the case:

1. http://www.straitstimes.com/news/singapore/courts-crime/story/amos-yee-prison-his-facebook-page-continues-get-updated-mysterious

2. http://www.straitstimes.com/news/singapore/courts-crime/story/amos-yee-remand-his-facebook-page-continues-get-updated-mysterious

3. http://www.straitstimes.com/news/singapore/courts-crime/story/amos-yee-prison-his-facebook-page-continues-get-updated-mysterious?page=1 (Article originally behind paywall)

But we can figure it out for ourselves as this practice of having multiple links for one article boils down to two things:

1) ST being careless, as they originally reported that Amos Yee is in "prison" when, in fact, he is in "remand" -- and the subsequent edit from "prison" to "remand" in the article was made without any editor's note to reflect the changes and this caused the original URL for the article to change as well and resulted in a duplicate article.

2) The original article was parked behind a paywall so readers could only read less than half the piece. But the subsequent duplicate articles were made fully available -- but with no indication which story was the latest. Do note that the original story behind a paywall is now fully accessible as well.

Therefore, in the interest of fairness, the headline of this article has been changed to reflect the amendments made to the content of this piece. The original content below has not been deleted but struck through to show what is not the case, but left on this site for posterity.

And obviously, this practice is to avoid doing an ST -- which is to prevent duplicating the same article and with no explanation why articles suddenly have headlines that have been changed and new URLs generated.

 

It appears The Straits Times has been trolled by Amos Yee yet again.

This time, the English national broadsheet deleted an article, "Amos Yee in prison but his Facebook page continues to get updated mysteriously", which was originally published on June 19, 2015.

ST reported in that piece:

Teenage blogger Amos Yee is into his third week of remand at Changi Prison, yet his Facebook page has suddenly come alive again.

Since Thursday, seven posts so far have appeared at regular intervals on the 16-year-old's public page.

The first, which read "What's up doc? Hahahaha…", popped up at about 5pm on Thursday.

It was followed a few hours later by another post, which posed the question: "How is it that I am in prison, yet I am still able to post something on Facebook?"

What it should have been (This is the cached version):

amos-yee-troll-st-01

 

What it is now:

amos-yee-troll-st-02

 

However, the article is still up on Singapore Press Holdings' sister news site AsiaOne:

amos-yee-troll-st-03

 

Some possible reasons the news article was deleted without a trace or explicit reason:

1. Amos Yee's Facebook page updates are no mystery after all -- has ST not heard of scheduled posts?

2. ST realised they are giving the boy too much attention over a small matter that is hardly a mystery -- if they really thought about it.

3. Both reasons apply and the reporter got pawned.

 

Some possible reasons why Amos Yee's Facebook updates are not mysterious at all:

1. He made use of scheduled posts.

2. He had someone post on his behalf.

 

Top photo by Ng Yishu

If you like what you read, follow us on Facebook and Twitter to get the latest updates.