Acting Minister for Information, Communications and the Arts Lui Tuck Yew said there was no need to "dignify ... a proper response" to the recent hoax that Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew had suffered a serious heart attack.
Rear Admiral Lui was replying to Government Parliamentary Committee chairman (Information, Communications and the Arts) Zaqy Mohamad, who asked about the ministry's non-response to former Singaporean Gopalan Nair's fake blog post.
RAdm Lui said: "We should treat it with the contempt it deserves. All it shows is the character of the man."
He credited netizens for initially "expressing disbelief" and later condemning Mr Gopalan, now an American citizen, when the latter fessed up. Some sites "regretfully" continued to champion Mr Gopalan's cause.
Still, RAdm Lui said it was "worthwhile to have incidents like this" so the Internet community can take steps to self-regulate.
He added that the Government is particularly concerned with misuse of identity, stolen identity and impersonation, which have "repercussions beyond what (netizens) imagine it to be".
From TODAYonline, "Mica unfazed by American netizen's hoax".
