Online publication Jom fails in appeal against POFMA orders over Ridout Road article

SINGAPORE: A High Court judge on Wednesday (Sep 6) dismissed appeals by online publication Jom against two correction directions that it received in July under Singapore’s fake news law.

Jom had published what it calls a “weekly digest” in relation to the rental of black-and-white bungalows along Ridout Road by two Cabinet ministers.

Subsequently, Second Minister for Law Edwin Tong and Minister for Communications and Information Josephine Teo called for correction directions to be issued to Jom under the Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act (POFMA).

Jom complied with the directions to carry correction notices on its website and Facebook page, but its editor-in-chief Sudhir Thomas Vadaketh said then that it would challenge the orders.

In a written judgment released on Wednesday afternoon, High Court judge Valerie Thean ruled that Jom had indeed made three false statements of fact in the article.

One such statement was that the Singapore Land Authority (SLA) spent more than S$1 million (US$0.76 million) on renovating the Ridout Road bungalows because the ministers - Law and Home Affairs Minister K Shanmugam and Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan - were to be the tenants.

During the court appeal, Jom did not dispute that the statements in question were false. But it argued through its lawyers that it did not intend to make the statements, and that it did not make the statements Mr Tong and Ms Teo said it made.

The POFMA correction directions centred on two parts of Jom’s “weekly digest” that was published on Jul 7.

These parts were respectively titled "No corruption by the Rajahs of Ridout, but many questions unanswered” and “Did Instagram accede to a censorship request by the Rajah?”.

They came after news emerged in early May that Mr Shanmugam and Dr Balakrishnan were tenants of bungalows at 26 and 31 Ridout Road respectively. 

Interest in the matter arose after opposition politician and Reform Party chief Mr Jeyaretnam questioned if the ministers were "paying less than the fair market value".

Investigations, including by the Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau, found no evidence of criminal wrongdoing or preferential treatment given to the two ministers.

JUDGE'S RULING

The first Jom subject statement identified under POFMA was that Senior Minister Teo Chee Hean did not respond to questions concerning the issue of actual or apparent conflicts of interest and possible breach of the code of conduct for ministers, beyond saying that it was "more important to observe the spirit rather than just the letter of the code".

Jom had referred to it as a "pithy reply".

Mr Teo was one of four ministers who gave ministerial statements in parliament on Jul 3 about the Ridout Road rentals.

In issuing the correction directions, Mr Tong and Mrs Teo said the article omitted important information from what the Senior Minister said in parliament. This included how Mr Shanmugam had recused himself, which meant there could be no potential or actual conflict of interest.

In her judgment, Justice Thean said the article was not expressed as the author’s opinion.

"It was an assertion of fact made by the author in order to support his opinion that because of the issue of conflicts of interest, many questions remained unanswered after the review that SM Teo (ought not to have) helmed," she wrote.

The judge, looking at the article as a whole, ruled that an objective, reasonable reader would conclude Mr Teo had no other answer beyond a cryptic quote.

The second subject statement was that the SLA spent more than S$1 million on the renovation of both bungalows because the ministers were tenants.

Jom had written that "the bare facts are shocking, including over S$1 million of taxpayer money spent on renovation works".

Justice Thean said an objective and reasonable segment of the audience would read the article as a whole, rather than just the “bare facts” – that is, the amount of money spent on the renovation, how big the bungalows were, and the rental rate for 26 Ridout Road.

She ruled that the article had asserted that conflicts of interest caused SLA to spend more than S$1 million in taxpayer money to renovate the large properties, despite a low rental return.

Finally, the third subject statement in question was that of Jom saying the government had caused Instagram to geo-block a post by fugitive lawyer Charles Yeo, the former chairman of Reform Party.

Jom had written that "Instagram has seemingly geo-blocked (only in Singapore) a post by Charles Yeo". It then said that the social media platform's parent firm Meta "sometimes works hand-in-glove with autocratic governments in the region", though it later noted that "there’s no evidence that Meta has any similar arrangement with Singapore’s ruling People’s Action Party (PAP)".

Justice Thean said in her judgment: “In my view, what the article does, by a series of speculative associations, is set out a case that the government caused Instagram to geo-block Charles Yeo’s post.

"Again, while this is not spelt out literally, the whole import of the article leads to an assertion that the Singapore government asked Instagram to geo-block the Charles Yeo post in Singapore."

In her ruling, Justice Thean applied a five-step framework set out in a landmark POFMA judgment by the Court of Appeal in 2021.

The second step was of particular relevance to Jom’s case, said the judge.

It holds that the court should determine whether the subject material being targeted makes or contains the subject statement identified by the minister, as understood according to the minister's intended meaning.

The court should also consider whether the minister's interpretation is a reasonable one.

Furthermore, the court should consider if “there would be at least an appreciable segment of the potential readership or audience of the subject material in Singapore, or a particular class of potential readers sharing certain clearly identifiable characteristics such as socio-political beliefs or ideals, who would construe the subject material as making or containing the subject statement”.

However, Jom said that Mr Tong and Ms Teo should be held strictly to their subject statements. Because of that, no reasonable reader would understand its article to mean any of the three subject statements, it argued.

Jom also noted that after the correction directions were issued, it added addenda to the article, saying it did not intend to nor make the subject statements in question.

Justice Thean considered this but held that the addenda was not relevant in determining whether the correction directions should be set aside.

Jom was represented by lawyers Jordan Tan and Victor Leong from Audent Chambers, as well as Keith Han and Angela Phoon from Oon & Bazul.

The Attorney-General was represented by Deputy Chief Counsel Kristy Tan, Senior State Counsel Jeyendran Jeyapal, Deputy Senior State Counsel Tan Zhongshan, and State Counsel Allen Lye.