10 Facts About the SPF & The Online Citizen Issue, In Which TOC Still Didn’t Back Down

As you probably know, online feuds on Facebook are as common as apology videos on YouTube.

One user makes an accusation, the accused responds, and both take turns correcting and insulting each other until the end of time.

Typically, this type of feud takes place between two friends who you’ve been thinking about unfriending anyway.

But in this case, the squabble is between the police and a news outlet.

If have no idea what I’m referring to, here are 10 facts about the feud between the Singapore Police Force (SPF) and The Online Citizen (TOC).

It All Started With an Instagram Story

Much like most online quarrels, our tale starts with a story on Instagram.

On 18 May, an Instagram user shared a video showing a group of police officers talking to two women, one of whom was elderly.

The user accused the officers of “cluster[ing]” the elderly lady, whom the user said had taken off her mask because she was feeling breathless.

“Poor auntie already put back on her mask they continued to tell her off to the extent someone had to come and salvage the situation,” the user said.

“Please @singaporepoliceforce there are people not wearing a mask and asking why people no badge, go and spend your time and make yourself more useful! Not taunt an old cardboard collection auntie! SHAME ON YOU!!” the user added.

Some News Sites Shared the Video, Including The Online Citizen

The video was shared by other local news outlets, including TOC, who reposted the video on their Facebook page on 18 May.

TOC also quoted the Instagram’s users claims in their post, which the user shared as captions in the video.

SPF Responds & Denies Allegations

A day after TOC first shared the Instagram user’s video, SPF responded to the allegations in a Facebook post of their own.

In their post, SPF said their officers had responded to the incident as a 85-year-old woman, who did not have a mask on, appeared to be lost at Block 743 Yishun Avenue 5 in the evening.

SPF said their officers had simply attended to the woman to help find her way home, as she resided in a block nearby.

SPF also contradicted allegations that they did not buy food for the elderly woman.

“As the incident took place during dinner time, our officers were concerned that the elderly woman might be hungry and bought food for her as well.”

The woman’s domestic helper was called to bring her home, and “no further police assistance was required after the elderly woman was handed over to her domestic helper safely”, SPF said.

Both News Outlets, as Well as the IG User, Were POFMA-ed

Three days after the video was posted, three parties were POFMA-ed. 

The Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act (Pofma) Office was instructed to issue correction directions to the Instagram user, Singapore Uncensored, and The Online Citizen Asia over falsehoods alleging police bullying.

As a result, all three were required to carry a correction notice as a new post.

The Online Citizen Interviews Woman Who Alleges She Was Chased Away By Officers

The squabble should have ended there, but TOC then released a video on 25 May of an interview they conducted with the elderly woman at the centre of the issue.

In the video, the elderly woman claimed that she wasn’t given food by the officers, and that they “chased her back” home.

In its post, TOC said that the video interview “tells a different story”, presumably to the one the authorities had told.

You can watch the video here:

It Turns Out the Elderly Woman Has Dementia

In their post, SPF also revealed that the elderly woman suffers from dementia, which could explain why she was lost at the time.

Dementia impairs one’s ability to remember, think, or make decisions, even if it’s for an everyday activity.

Police Release Body-cam Footage

In the Facebook post with their interview with the woman, TOC questioned why the police hadn’t shared footage from their officers’ body-worn cameras.

But just a day later, that’s exactly what SPF did.

In a rare move, SPF shared footage from one of its officers’ body-worn cameras, showing what the authorities believe to be a more accurate account of what happened.

The videos shows a police officer buying two chicken wings at a food stall, saying “the auntie requested for it”.

The officer can also be heard asking the hawker to cut the chicken wings up and add some chilli, after which we see him bringing the food to the elderly woman.

The officer then says “Come, let me bring you home”, but the elderly woman said there was “no need” to do so, as she could find her way home.

As for the claim that officers reprimanded the woman, the video showed an officer informing the woman’s domestic helper that the woman wasn’t wearing her mask.

He then instructed the helper to tell the woman that she wasn’t wearing her mask in public as required.

The footage seems to contradict the claims of the Instagram user and TOC, which is why one minister was particularly riled up by TOC’s interview with the elderly woman.

Home Affairs Minister: The Online Citizen “Twisted Facts” to “Attack the Police”

Law and Home Affairs Minister K Shanmugam slammed TOC for the “malicious” and “despicable” way in which it “twisted facts” in the interview with the woman.

Mr Shanmugam said the daughter of the elderly woman had confirmed that her mother has dementia and was upset that TOC had taken advantage of her mother to “spin a story”.

“I would say this is despicable and how low people will stoop. Unethical and cynical. This whole exercise by TOC is quite malicious to attack the police,” Mr Shanmugam said.

The minister said that SPF’s statement was correct and accurate, and that he directed the force to release the video of the body-worn camera “to set out the facts”.

He called on TOC to keep its “venom and malice” to politics, and not attack “police officers like this who spend their entire life servicing Singaporeans.”

You can watch his interview here:

At this point, you’d hide your bruised ego and retreat from the fight, right?

Well, that’s not exactly what TOC did.

The Online Citizen Doesn’t Back Down, Said “Machinery is Conflating Issues”

In a subsequent post, TOC said that the “machinery is trying to conflate the issues together”.

What TOC seems to be saying in their latest posts is that while SPF did indeed prove that they bought food for the woman and at no point chased her home, they did not address allegations that they “reprimanded” or “taunted” the woman, as the Instagram user put it.

“The body cam footage clearly shows the elderly lady being approached by the police officer for the purpose of her not wearing a mask,” TOC said.

However, approaching someone for not wearing a mask isn’t the same as reprimanding them, or taunting them.

What’s more, the video does address this allegation, by showing that it was the domestic helper the officer was speaking to, not the elderly woman.

The expression “grasping at straws” comes to mind here, a sentiment shared by many of the netizens who commented on TOC’s latest posts.

Netizens Condemn The Online Citizen’s Actions

In TOC’s latest post, most of the commenters expressed their disapproval of their actions, with one even saying they were “disgusted” by the news outlet.

In its post, the police advised members of the public not to spread unverified information or “make their own conjectures on an incident”, and to be responsible when posting or sharing any information online.

To know more about how new media platforms make money and how much they make, watch this video to the end:

Featured Image: Facebook (Singapore Police Force) & YouTube (theonlinecitizen toc)