November 15, 2018, 05:28 PM 
Facebook explained on Nov. 13 why it declined the Singapore authorities’ request to take down a States Times Review post.
What was the STR post about?
The post shared an article linking Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong with 1MDB investigations.
The article alleged that Malaysia had signed several unfair agreements with Singapore in exchange for Singapore banks’ assistance in laundering 1MDB funds.
What Facebook said in response
In response to media queries, Facebook said it does not have a policy that prohibits alleged falsehoods:
“We have a responsibility to handle any government request to restrict alleged misinformation carefully and thoughtfully, consistent with our approach to government requests around the world. We do not have a policy that prohibits alleged falsehoods, apart from in situations where this content has the potential to contribute to imminent violence or physical harm.”
Speaking at a roundtable with the media on the same day the statement was released, Monika Bickert, vice president of product policy at Facebook, said:
"We don’t have a policy of removing false content. We will generally try to counter the virality and surface educational content. There are those two exceptions, where it’s very tied to voter suppression or the imminent threat of physical violence in the offline world."
"Other than that, I will say that we do have a process through which governments can submit (something) to us if they think that something violates their laws and we have dialogues with governments back and forth on that. We have a legal team that analyses those requests and then we publish the results of those requests and whether we have removed content -- we publish that in a report that we put out every six months."
In September, a Select Committee report called for legislation for measures to be taken in response to online falsehoods, "since Facebook, Google and Twitter have a policy of generally not acting against content on the basis that it is false".
Background of case
On Nov. 9, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) denounced the STR article as "baseless and defamatory".
MAS then filed a police report over it.
Law and Home Affairs Minister K Shanmugam said the allegations were "absurd".
On the same day, the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) ordered STR to take down the article.
When it refused, IMDA directed Internet service providers in Singapore to restrict access to the website.
IMDA also asked Facebook to take down a post sharing the STR article.
Facebook declined the request.
In response, Singapore's Ministry of Law said that Facebook's stance showed that the social media platform "cannot be relied upon to filter falsehoods or protect Singapore from a false information campaign".
STR then said it was closing down.
A new website, Singapore Herald, was created a day after STR's closure by an anonymous person overseas with the help of STR founder Alex Tan.
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