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Amy-Gate: Fact or Fiction?
10 Points of Suspicion to Ponder Over
Amidst all the hullabaloo of Amy-gate, some netizens have questioned if the events were not staged and that Amy Chong was really a fictional character. The argument is that Amy-gate was really created as a piece-de-resistance of the PAP Government to push the populace to the tipping point of accepting the imminent Internet Code of Conduct.
Here are 10 suspicious points that appear to support the above theory:
1. All the ministers joined in the condemnation as if on cue.
2. On the day after Amy Cheong's offensive post was made public, The Straits Times splashed the photo of Amy on the front page. It's befuddling that the Straits Times which has always claimed itself to be "level-headed" would do this, given the possibility of vigilante attacks on Amy Cheong. Furthermore, previous cases in which similar incendiary posts were made had never made it to the headline.
3. On the same day when Amy-gate broke, the same Straits Times published an article from the Wall Street Journal titled "Why we are so rude online".
4. The above article was mentioned by their political master supremo Lee Hsien Loong last week in a post on his Facebook about "online vitriol".
5. Indeed, as Lee commented in his denunciation of Amy Cheong, he again quoted the article: "Just last week, I shared a WSJ article on why people say nasty things online that they would never say face to face. I reminded netizens that we needed to be extra careful and watch ourselves..."
6. At the same time, Warren Fernandez penned a note on Straits Times Facebook page questioning why "these episodes keep flaring up online", insinuating that there was indeed a need for regulation of the online platform.
7. Immediately after the furor erupted and she was "sacked", Amy Cheong supposedly managed to get a ticket to Perth where she is now. This is despite the fact that police report had been lodged against her by a PAP man, Lionel De Souza.
8. Incidentally, it is befuddling why Lionel de Souza did not lodge a report against Jason Neo whose post on a group of Muslim kids was arguably more incendiary. This could of course be due to Jason Neo's PAP connection. If this was the case, then surely we have reason to doubt Lionel De Souza's claim that he wanted to do the right thing. It is also worth noting that for that incident, the PAP ministers did not come out to categorically condemn Jason Neo or sack him from YPAP.
9. It is also, if not even more, befuddling that the NTUC would sack a senior staff in such haste, appearing to cave in to pressure from netizens.
10. Finally, even as all the above were taking place, Yaacob Ibrahim was opening the International Institute of Communications Conference 2012, where he spoke again on "growing concerns on easy access to illegal content and increasingly harmful Internet conduct."
In summary, the chain of events in Amy-gate appears to be too well-rehearsed, with each episode taking place as if on cue. But is it really the case? Only Amy will know, provided she exists, that is.
In any case, the winner in Amy-gate is the PAP as it comes out smelling like roses following: the "swift" "condemnation" of Amy Cheong, the "decisive action" taken by NTUC and the fact that its "grassroots leader" had lodged a police report thus becoming a "hero".
Finally of course, it may have convinced many of the need to accept the Internet Code of Conduct.
