Amos Yee is back in the news.

Here's basically why.

In a nutshell, he preached pro-pedophilia ideology, and was unsurprisingly taken down across most platforms.

This in turn led to Melissa Chen, one of his ardent supporters, taking him to task on his recent behaviour.

In it, Chen called Yee "a stain on Singapore, and a stain on the human race" among other choice words.

One would think that might have been the end of the situation, particular since Yee did not really have a platform to counter Chen's points.

But like all the times before, Yee's mother, Mary Toh, took it upon herself to defend her son.

Mother responds

Here is Toh's response to Chen's video.

Here are the key takeaways.

Toh had felt obligated to respond to Chen's post, partly because she felt Yee no longer had a platform to speak up on.

She makes it clear that she is against paedophilia.

However, she thinks there is a better way to carry that message without creating a negative perception against free speech.

Toh then went on to her rebuttal against Chen.

Rebuttal

Toh felt that Chen, as a person who associates with people that support platforming hate groups like the KKK among others, is being quite hypocritical on her stance against Yee.

That is because, according to Toh, Yee has not directly advocated harming a child.

"Amos unlike those groups, has never advocated for direct harm to any child (if you have an actual quote that he did (that is not misrepresented or out of context), please show it to me)"

While Toh acknowledged that Yee's pro-paedophilia comments might contribute to harming children, she sees a disparity with the harm that the KKK and neo-Nazi groups cause — groups that Chen allegedly supports.

Toh speculated that this relative intolerance is due to the current situation in America where hate groups are given more leeway in terms of speech.

A particular point Toh took offence with was Chen's seemingly off-the-cuff offer to personally help deport Yee.

If Melissa were consistent with her views on ‘freedom of speech’, she would defend Amos’ rights to speak on the internet, but instead, not only did she lead the campaign that took down all of Amos’ online platforms (Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Wordpress), she is also apparently ‘offering’ to deport Amos back to Singapore.

This ran counter to what Chen's previous statements on Singapore seemed to suggest.

Toh then proceded to call Chen "dishonest, intellectually dishonest", because she had apparently made her views based on peer-pressure, instead of what Toh deems a logical perspective.

She also had some suggestions for Chen.

I feel like she made that video against Amos based on completely biased misinformation spread about him by haters, and I think she should really refrain from posting on the internet whilst menstruating.

According to Toh, Yee had apparently reached out to Chen for a private conversation, and she hoped Chen would accept his offer.

Toh believes Yee "has improved a lot in communication and social skills, so I think Melissa would be pleasantly surprised if she talked to Amos now".

Apology

Toh hopes that all this, and perhaps the conversation with Yee himself can convince Chen to take down the video, and issue a public apology.

A video that Toh deems just as embarrassing as Yee's defence of paedophilia.

After Melissa speaks with Amos, I sincerely hope that she takes down her video, and then issue a public apology, because anyone who’s actually reasonable would know that this public statement she made is just embarrassing for her, and this is embarrassing in contrast to Amos, my son who now defends pedophiles, so you know it’s bad

Related

Image collated from Toh and Lester978's Wordpress

 

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