Singapore Press Holdings to review STOMP following petition to close ‘public shaming’ site
Singapore Press Holdings is to undertake a review of its citizen journalism website STOMP in the wake of a popular campaign to close the site down, Mumbrella can reveal.
Talking to Mumbrella at the World Association of Newspapers conference in Hong Kong today, Patrick Daniel, editor-in-chief of SPH’s English and Malay newspapers, said the company would be reviewing the site to see what needed to be changed.
The campaign to close the site, which launched on 7 April, has attracted 23,160 signatures on Change.org at the time of writing.
The campaign, instigated by a young Singaporean retail executive, has attracted international media attention, with Al Jazeera’s Washington bureau running an internet program on what it described as a “public shaming” site. SPH declined to be on the show.
STOMP has been accused of promoting cyberbullying, racial intolerance and the invasion of privacy, particularly on public transport.
Despite reports to the contrary, Daniel told Mumbrella that the campaign had had an impact on the publisher.
“I can’t say that it [the anti-STOMP campaign] doesn’t have impact on us. We will have to review it. After all, we serve an audience,” he said this afternoon.
“But having said that, I have to measure that [negative] sentiment against the fact that we have a solid following of people who can live with a bit of edginess. They’re not troubled by it. But that’s the internet for you,” he said.
“Everything people accuse STOMP of, you could say the same of a dozen sites on the internet. We have to decide what the best response is,” he said.
“We are looking at it calmly. I think there’s been a little bit of astroturfing on the numbers [of backers of the anti-Stomp campaign]. But we have to accept that these are genuinely held views.”
He added: “I’m not forcing everyone to read it [STOMP]. If you don’t like it, go elsewhere. It’s not as if STOMP is your only media diet. It’s a website for people to engage with us, and that’s what it is.”
Daniel said he was still working through what the review of STOMP would involve, whether that is heavier moderation of the site or more stringent fact-checking.
The story on STOMP that prompted the campaign to close the site down was the false accusation of a national serviceman for not giving up his seat on a train to an elderly lady.
“If a citizen journalism site is very heavily moderated, then you will lose the character of the site. We need to think that through.”
“People have flamed Stomp for a long time – we’re used to it,” he added.
A week ago, Felix Soh, editor of SPH’s digital arm, said that those who opposed STOMP were also among those campaigning for free speech in Singapore. He told his sister newspaper, the Strait Times: “It is sad that those who clamour for the freedom of the internet are now asking for the closure of a website – just because they don’t like it.”
At the WAN-IFRA conference, Daniel outlined the threats and opportunities for Singapore Press Holdings as revenue and circulation have begun to decline. “If we do nothing, the tipping point will come – or we will find that we’re past it. But now we’ve had the experience [of decline], the challenge is what steps do we take,” he told Mumbrella.
Any site that allows flagrant bigotry and racism should not be allowed to exist. And the owners of Stomp should be taken to task for alowing such derogatory comments. What ever happened to site moderation by admins?
ReplySTOMP is a hate and stigma stirrer website. Please close them down ASAP. Thanks
ReplySoh is full of it.
A website that glorifies *unverified* claims of alleged bad behaviour of the citizenry – which often leads to public shaming of the individuals involved without giving them avenue for recourse – does not in any way, shape of form exemplify the tenets of freedom of speech.
Only a perverse and blinkered crony would even dare to invoke freedom of speech to justify Stomp’s existence.
ReplyCropping of photo to paint a different story doesn’t require fact checking. It shows lack of integrity and professional ethics.
ReplyI’m all for free speech, but STOMP is such a negative playground with no accountability that no one will miss it when it goes. There was a call to boycott any advertiser who puts an ad on STOMP but as it turns out, there’s only internal advertising on it anyway. I’m sure any advertiser in his right mind would avoid the site like the plague.
The website is just a page click churner for ST, whose earnings from the news side of things plunges every quarter. It’s sad that the incompetent management of SPH doesn’t see how negatively STOMP affects ST and their other papers, but hey, the quality of ST has been plummeting especially after Warren Fernandez took over…
(and has there been a more boring online newspaper makeover than that of the Straits Times recently?)
ReplyWe are not against free speech. We are against lazy and irresponsible editors.
ReplyHey Felix Soh you idiot. Free speech does not mean people can abuse it. The thing about freedom of speech is you can say what you want, but if you use it to infringe on any human rights (such as privacy), or if you are being slanderous, others can respond against you. No one is protected from the repurcussions of free speech. You dish it out you should be able to take it. In this case, Stomp has shown it is an inaccurate “citizen journalism” site that encourages people to invade the privacy of others, it has become trashy and promotes the shaming of strangers, many of whom have not done anything to deserve it. Are the people contributing to the site any better than the Jesslyn girl who shamed man online for wearing a shirt with holes, or anton casey who mocked a cab driver for wearing gloves? They both took photos of strangers secretly to publish online, all in the name of shaming the subjects.
Reply>>”It’s sad that the incompetent management of SPH doesn’t see how negatively STOMP affects ST and their other papers…”
It’s sad that the incompetent management of SPH doesn’t see how negatively STOMP affects Singapore.
ReplyWell if Stomp is shut down due to it being a ‘playground of negativity’, then why can’t we shut down other incendiary websites like Hearttruths or Temasek Review as well based on the same principle? Pretty sure the only difference between them is that one is publicly owned, the other would be privately managed.
Perhaps what we’re asking for is SPH not to have any links with Stomp? And for them to stop committing the crime of yellow journalism.
Reply@Ggggg:
Erm, no.
What constitutes a “Playground of negativity” is a personal and subjective opinion. Setting aside the question of such a viewpoint’s validity, the other websites you mention discuss social issues and public figures of general interest to the population, without necessarily committing any invasion of privacy. On the other hand, Stomp is a gallery of ordinary citizens usually minding their own private business, whose reasonable expectations of privacy are regularly infringed upon.
Private or public ownership of the forum in question isn’t really a factor here.
ReplyMaybe it’s like the same case with the allowing of the red light district. If they shut down key areas for people to vent off steam, people might get more angry and vote off PAP in the next election. For me, I don’t even visit STOMP.
ReplyTrying to shut down STOMP implies it’s a threat of some sort…better to leave it alone to the brain dead morons who find it to their liking. If sensible people avoided it, it will die a natural death anyway. Unless there are more braindead morons in singapore than sensible ones….but that’s another topic.
Reply@singaporean
Actually what you just mentioned also hinges upon personal and subjective opinion as well, how do you know that websites like Hearttruths and Temasek Review discuss issues of general interest? Seeing as they cover alternative views, compared to the mainstream viewpoints of the nation, how is this in the general interest? Are they in the conciousness of the majority? How would this form of interest be any different from
ReplyStomp? As for the violations of privacy, well that is subjective as well, as an expectation of privacy cannot be held when one is in public. So what infringement privacy are u referring to?
Stomp encourages bad behaviour like public mockery, causing social distress and public harassment. A negative enforcement, espically bad to our society. The press have to be responsible for stiring negative social behaviour and stop giving excuses to make profit or gain from it! Stomp should be removed!
Reply@Ggggg
The types of subject matter covered by those websites compared to Stomp’s are so self-evidently different that your questions are surely rhetorical, if not an outright attempt at trolling.
I don’t believe you have any real complaints about those other sites’ coverage of general interest topics nor their position on privacy. The way you phrased your initial objection to those sites – by alluding to their alleged negativity – suggests that you are not opposed to the content they publish, but rather to their non-conformist views (read: non-ruling party-sanctioned views) on said content.
It is impossible to take seriously any complaints that try to equate Stomp with those other sites. You are however free to start your petition on change.org to see how few people would agree.
ReplyOne of the commenters above said:
“Stomp encourages bad behaviour like public mockery, causing social distress and public harassment.”
This is complet bullshit…..and trying to shift the blame elsewhere.
Let’s face it, large sections of singapore society (a group becoming larger and more vocal by the day) have made public mockery, causing social distress and public harrassment their modus operandi – when they don’t like something or someone.
Stomp, crass as it may be, is nothing but one outlet that gets noticed because of its critical mass. The same backward singaporean behaviour is also on display on facebook and forums like hardwarezone and sammyboy.
These are people who are frustrated with what they see as an establishment that isn’t listening to their concerns about indiscriminate crowding and approaches to immigration, many of which bring other economic problems and have perhaps gone too far to correct.
ReplyWas stuck on mrt doors at newton on 9/9/2016 between 10.30 to 10.45pm…trains door didn open immed,as my bag was on my left hand,hand and bag was stuck on the doors a middle age lady and a guy in his early 20s help pull my bag from the doors,stupid door…the more you struggle the tighter the doors close on you..doors only open few mins after those kind fellows free me from the doors,i send pics to stomp asking him to help me get witness but he is so stuckup…ungrateful fellow he uses my pics for other news post,i ask him a favour to appeal for witness for the accident he ignore me,saw him help others to post for lost wallet and wedding ring,and this is accident,surprised he ignore to help me.
ReplyHave your say