With Singapore’s Media Development Authority announcing new licensing requirements commencing on 1 June 2013 for online websites that “...(i) report an average of at least one article per week on Singapore’s news and current affairs over a period of two months, and (ii) are visited by at least 50,000 unique IP addresses from Singapore each month over a period of two months..” the usual debate about government censorship controls unsurprisingly resurfaced.
Its interesting to note that many governments have or are seeking to review aspects of their media regulation, often with the effect of ensuring that online and new social media content channels become subject to some form of review.
Australia: The recent Gillard Labor government failed to pass media law reforms aimed at introducing a new Public Interest Media Advocate to oversee media industry self-regulation and assess M&A activity in the sector by applying a “public interest” test to ensure media ownership diversity. Under the failed proposals, subscription TV and online media content channels would have been caught by the new reforms.
NZ: Most recently, as part of push for legislative refresh, the New Zealand Law Commission has recommended the formation of a new independent self-regulated agency regulator – the News Media Standards Authority to oversee broadcast, print & online media with the power to enforce corrections and retractions but not fines. Currently there is 3 way mix between the Press Council overseeing print media, the Broadcasting Standards Authority’s remit is TV and radio and the Advertising Standards Authority with no-one with covering internet. The NZ government will announce its deliberations on this issue later this year.
UK: Out of the well known Levison inquiry into the UK print media, a new media watchdog formed by Royal Charter – the Recognition Panel has been proposed. The local UK media is still debating its response of this new independent self-regulatory agency.
Image source: Kyo Tux
