By Graham K. Rogers

Governments have different approaches in the ways they deal with the Internet and the sources of information available, particularly through what is called the World Wide Web. Many regimes have tried (and some succeeded) to cut flows of information, but the WWW is a leaky sieve and something usually gets through.

Instead of a firewall, which is the preferred solution of governments such as China or North Korea, some resort to the bureaucratic methods of licensing: no licence, no site. This is the way that Singapore intends to impose more controls on sites that report on the country. Although it is not clear, it is presumably aimed at those sites that are based within Singapore, as many sites in the region may have online articles each week about the country.

The Media Development Authority, has outlined some of the requirements that must be complied with by sites that have a "significant reach" as from Friday (1 June) to "place them on a more consistent regulatory framework with traditional news platforms which are already individually licensed."

The licence is required if a site has at least one article a week on Singapore over 2 months, and is visited by "at least 50,000 unique IP addresses from Singapore each month" in that same 2 month period. Sites that fit within the criteria are also required to post a performance bond of S$50,000 (approx 120,000 baht or US$39,521), a not-insignificant sum.

More information on the requirements are available from the Ministry of Truth Media Development Authority which we presume is exempt from the licensing need as a government organisation under the Ministry of Communications and Information.

Graham K. Rogers teaches at the Faculty of Engineering, Mahidol University in Thailand where he is also Assistant Dean. He wrote in the Bangkok Post, Database supplement on IT subjects. For the last seven years of Database he wrote a column on Apple and Macs.