S'porean overseas starts website chronicling social media updates on Little India riot

Website is to make better sense of the riot as mainstream media was providing poor coverage of events.

Belmont Lay| December 14, 09:09 AM

A 26-year-old Singaporean student based in San Francisco has started a website chronicling social media updates in the aftermath of the Little India riot on Dec. 8.

The website, littleindiariot.com, aggregates content related to the riot from social media, such as Twitter.

It was started to make better sense of the event as mainstream media coverage of the story was not comprehensive enough.

The website's creator, Eugene Gao said: "As a Singaporean living overseas, I was left saddened by the Sunday's events and frustrated by the standards of official reportage. With that in mind, I created a site that presents a real-time update on the riots through social media, as well as both official and alternative media sources."

Gao said he took a day to create the website with another friend, Cheong Kakit, 26, which effectively went live one day after the riot.

Gao also explained that the website helped him stay in touch with what was happening: "I wanted to keep up to date all the news and opinions about the riots, since I'm overseas. So, I created this to be an easy hub to keep updated and get a broad range of sources."

The website's creators also maintain that their platform will not just be a short term project.

"I'd definitely keep it up for the long term. Even after the issue settles in the back of our minds over the next year, I see it as a way to document and remember this historic moment in our lifetimes as Singaporeans," Gao said.

"Thanks to hashtags and digital archiving, I want this blog to capture the spirit and mood of these unsettling times."

 

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