The Facebook pages of Singapore States Times (SST) and its owner Alex Tan have been designated as Declared Online Locations (DOL) under the Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act (POFMA) from May 7.

These Facebook pages have "repeatedly communicated numerous falsehoods, of which at least three on each page were the subject of POFMA directions from November 2019 to date", the Ministry of Communications and Information (MCI) said in a media release on May 6.

MCI said SST and Tan have refused to comply with any of the directions issued to them.

Under the declarations, both Facebook pages are required to carry a notice stating that they have been declared DOLs.

Visitors to the pages will be warned that the pages have a history of communicating falsehoods.

The declaration will also make it an offence for both SST and Tan to derive benefit from operating the Facebook pages, MCI said.

This is the second time that Facebook pages operated by Tan have been designated as DOLs.

The States Times Review Facebook page was designated a DOL on Feb. 16.

Minister for Communications and Information S Iswaran then directed the POFMA Office to order Facebook to block Singapore users from accessing STR’s page.

What is a Declared Online Location?

DOLs can include website and webpages.

They are defined as online locations that have carried three or more different falsehoods that are the subject of active directions issued by the POFMA Office.

SST's recent falsehoods include the number of Covid-19 cases in schools, the Ministry of Health's (MOH) reporting of Covid-19 cases in Singapore, the payment of salaries for quarantined migrant workers amid the Covid-19 outbreak, as well as allegations of abuse of police power.

Responses

In response to the designating of the Facebook pages of SST and Alex Tan as DOL, both pages have put up posts directing users to follow a new page, National Times Singapore.