From a Singapore Angle

Freshly selected by the ST Editor, I assume. This one is called "Schools need balanced view on student blogs" by Jonathan Au Yong Kok Kong. It's supposed to be a reaction to Andy Ho's earlier piece "Blogging's catching on, but beware of the pitfalls" (ST, Sept 19) which was itself a commentary on l'affair sedition. But Mr. Au Yong's letter goes in a related but different direction. Let me begin with a minor contradiction that mars the page (emphasis mine):

I agree with many bloggers out there that blogs are private space, like a personal diary, where one is free to express one's innermost emotions. I, for one, am an avid blogger and find blogging a cathartic and near-spiritual experience, an activity that grants me the opportunity to rewind and reflect. However, like any publication made available to the public, there are certain parameters the published content must stay within. I believe this should apply to published content on weblogs. While I do not advocate a curtailing of bloggers' freedom of expression, I must admit each blogger has to assume a certain sense of responsibility for his published work. The recent arrests are thus a wake-up call to bloggers to be more responsible about what they publish.

There is a reason why "publish" is cognate with "public", you know. "Studying in a prestigious all-boys school in the Bishan-Ang Mo Kio area", one would expect the writer to be a tad more careful--and the editor to be more discerning with his scalpel. Anyway, the next bit is quite interesting actually:

...I have witnessed on many occasions the school administration root out pupils who criticised teachers on their weblog and extract a public apology from them (posted in cyberspace, nonetheless). I believe such measures are necessary, especially when certain comments border on promotion of ill will or hostility. However, comments made about teachers in jest, and on some occasions perfectly harmless, should not be dealt with so harshly. Even students who unknowingly quoted certain paragraphs from a peer's blog were chastised and given a sound lecture.

It is only to be expected that teachers will take an interest in the students' feedback of any kind. Student blogs are extremely useful in this regard because of their more permanent nature--compared to to old fashioned grousing behind the teachers' backs. If tracked down, they can be saved as evidence. I'm sure many people will have opinions about the fitness of the teachers' reactions reported above so I shan't add to them. The next part, however, is amazing, if true (or truly amazing, if you will):

To my knowledge, this phenomenon does not transpire within the boundaries of our fine institution alone. Teachers in many schools in Singapore have started to take an interest in student blogs. Some have even publicly announced to their students their decision to practise favouritism according to what they find written about themselves in students' online diaries.

No kidding...

update: (Sep 26, 1930 -0400)

Today's ST has more in the article, "Schools act against students for 'flaming' teachers on blogs" by Sandra Davie and Liaw Wy-Cin. Some highlights:

FREE speech may be the buzzword on the Internet - but libel is unacceptable everywhere. The message has been sent out loud and clear, with five junior college students being punished for posting offensive remarks about two teachers and a vice-principal online. The students, all girls, were made to remove the remarks from their Internet diaries, or blogs, and suspended for three days last month. Their parents were also informed.

[Scroll way down to see the newsflash.] Some of the more colorful details:

Seven secondary schools and two JCs have asked bloggers who criticise or insult their teachers online - 'flaming' in Internet jargon - to remove the offending remarks. One such remark referred to a secondary school teacher as a 'prude' for disciplining a student for wearing a too-short skirt. 'Frustrated old spinster. Can't stand to see attractive girls,' the blog read. Tanglin Secondary science and PE teacher Tham Kin Loong said: 'I've had vulgarities hurled against me, my parents and my whole family in some students' blogs.'

With as many as 18 secondary schools and junior colleges (out of 31 contacted) reporting an increase in "such incidents", it's only a matter of time before somebody raises that most Singaporean instrument of response--the lawsuit:

The 33-year-old [Tham] added: 'Most of them do not realise the legal implications of what they are writing in such a public domain.' If teachers wish to prosecute, they may have legal grounds to do so.

Singapore Teachers' Union general secretary Swithun Lowe said the union is ready to back any teacher who wants to take legal action. It has offered legal help to a few members, but they did 'not want to affect the prospects of their young students'.

Lawyers say students can be sued for defamation, even if a teacher is not named. 'As long as someone is able to identify the teacher, and it is an untrue statement that affects his reputation or livelihood, then the student is liable,' said Ms Doris Chia of Harry Elias and Partners.

An injunction can be taken to get the student to remove the blog and issue an apology, she added.

Since the increasing in the incidence of blogging partly came about as a result of English and GP teachers encouraging their students to do so so as to improve their writing (not to mention the school blogging competition), don't expect any schools to actually ban blogging. And unless any school has excess budget to burn, don't expect them to be snooping around cyberspace looking for problems. That's not optimism, just common sense...well, not counting any teacher with any...complexes.

Schools also said they do not police blogs. They say they only check them after complaints are made. 'And if we feel that the remark is untrue or unfair, then we expect the student to apologise,' said Raffles Institution vice-principal S. Magendiran.

On a different note: actually, I would be quite interested to see if blogging has improved the writing of our students.

latest: more from Mr. Wang (who does not suffer fools lightly) and Mr. Brown (who thinks that the natural solution is simple: "Maybe teachers should start their own blogs and flame their students back. Better yet, have a yearly Interschool Teacher-Student Flamewar Blogging Championship. Like a WWE of blogging.")

more: Tomorrow.sg has other links, so I shan't repeat them. But they seem to have missed the Void Deck, and this related piece from Singapore Ink. On a slightly different note, I am a little puzzled as to why the link on the Tomorrow.sg entry to me is under "trackback" (and not just a regular link) since I wasn't the one who left it. As I understand it, the who point of a trackback is so that, for example, if A notices something interesting on B's blog, blogs about it and links to it, and A wants B to know that he has done that, he leaves a trackback on B's site. I'm not complaining, just puzzled; anyone knows anything about their procedures?

newsflash: The ones suspended for blogging nasty about their teacher, that is, "because 1 withdraw from school and has already left for Australia." ~~And this is from le blog célébré itself (discovery courtesy of sitemeter referral)~~ (link removed).