The Minister for Communications and Information has directed the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) to block access to the East Asia Forum website.

This was announced by MCI on Sep. 16.

IMDA will issue the access blocking orders to internet access service providers who have to then disable local access to the website.

This development came after East Asia Forum failed to comply fully with the correction direction issued by the Singapore government on Sep. 13.

Did not comply fully

The government had taken issue with a commentary penned by an NUS academic.

It said the piece had "false statements in relation to various matters, including the independence of the Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau and the prime minister's approach in addressing certain matters".

East Asia Forum was instructed to pin correction notices at the top of the article in question and on the main page of the website.

This is so that end-users in Singapore can read both versions and decide for themselves, said the government.

Instead, it published the government's response within the comment section.

"Should East Asia Forum subsequently comply with the full requirements of the correction direction, the minister will cancel the access blocking orders," said MCI.

Meta ordered to include Correction Notice on Facebook post

Separately, Indranee Rajah, Minister in the Prime Minister's Office has instructed the POFMA Office to issue a targeted correction direction to Meta Platforms, Inc.

The targeted correction direction instructs Meta to serve a correction notice to Facebook users in Singapore who access East Asia Forum's Facebook post on the article.

The government's clarifications on the contents of the East Asia Forum article can be found here.

Top images: East Asia Forum.