I am TIRED of writing about vapes and Kpods but they keep appearing in the news! Of all the issues going on in the world in 2025, it boggles my mind that this seems to be the hill that our government is choosing to die on.
Two versions of a show’s cancellation
Sammy Obeid, a stand-up comedian from the US, announced a few days ago that his Singapore shows, which were meant to happen tomorrow, have been cancelled. Breaking the news on Instagram, he pointed his finger at the Singaporean authorities.
“I was well aware that the government was unlikely to approve my current ‘set’,” he wrote. “It’s almost entirely focused on the ongoing genocide in Gaza, of which most governments in the world—if not all—are largely complicit. So the question for me was, how much should I—or am I willing to—censor myself?”
Quite a lot, he admitted, and he went through “a lot of back and forth with the producers” about how to deal with the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA). Ultimately he said he “erred on the side of caution and submitted a heavily censored script that only referenced Palestine a few times. And mentioned Israel once, during a math joke.”
But even this wasn’t good enough, because the script was rejected weeks later, and he said he was “told to completely remove all mentions of Palestine and Israel”. Cryptic references to Israel–Palestine buried among “squeaky clean jokes” didn’t get through, either, and finally he said he was hit with a “there’s not enough time for another revision and resubmission” so there would be no permit.
This sounds like a depressingly familiar story to those of us in the arts and civil society scenes, but Obeid’s account has been disputed by IMDA. They say that his application was rejected because it was submitted late. IMDA requires applications for Arts Entertainment Licences to be submitted at least 40 working days before the event, but said Obeid’s was only put in about 10 working days in advance. “At no time were ‘multiple edits’ requested,” they said. “We are also not aware of past applications for Mr Obeid to perform in Singapore and discussions on scripts.”
According to IMDA's webpage on applying for an Arts Entertainment Licence, stand-up comedy comes under "unscripted performances", for which they require a synopsis, a rehearsal video or a footage from a past performance, and multimedia material (if any). Their content checklist also asks applicants to indicate if various "content elements"—like racial/religious content, nudity, or "non-mainstream lifestyles and behaviours, including but not limited to alternative sexualities, fetishes and addictions" 🙄—will be present in the show.
How curious to have such different stories of how things went down. As far as I’ve seen, Obeid hasn’t responded to IMDA’s version of events, nor has anyone tried to POFMA him. In another Instagram post, he said he’s adding shows at other stops to make up for the cancellation in Singapore. “If we can’t find a local replacement, I will put on a private (uncensored) virtual show for all Singapore fans,” he promised.
Are you old enough for social media?
For all the opportunities social media has given us, these networks can also be deeply cursed spaces. Lots have been written about how tech companies design social media algorithms to manipulate and get us hooked so we stay on the platform for longer, because more engagement = more opportunity to serve ads, collect data, and make money. This becomes even more of a concern when it comes to developing, impressionable brains—and that’s before we even consider the sort of content that young people are exposed to on social media, often without the knowledge of the adults around them.
Governments in various countries have moved to implement measures aimed at protecting minors online, and Singapore is joining their ranks. Josephine Teo, Minister for Digital Development and Information, told CNA’s Deep Dive podcast that the government is studying ways to make the digital space safer for young people. Age assurances measures are one possibility—age verification requirements will be rolled out for app stores by the first quarter of next year, and Teo said the ministry is considering applying this to social media networks as well. This would require the use of credit cards or SingPass to prove that the user is aged 18 and above before they’re able to access certain things.
Regulating (and maybe even restricting) young people’s use of social media makes sense on principle, because there’s so much out there that’s not appropriate or safe for them to be engaging with when they’re still vulnerable and immature in many ways. The challenge is in figuring out how to actually do it, and this isn’t something that can be left to the government and passing laws or regulations alone.
Got some more…
💨 I know I said I’m sick and tired of writing about vapes, but I’m horrified by the Ministry of Education also going all-in on the punitive measures. Desmond Lee, the education minister, announced a slew of penalties for students caught vaping, ranging from detention and suspension to caning, getting evicted from their hostels (if they’re from institutes of higher learning), or even expulsion. Schools will also report students to the authorities so that they’ll face further penalties under the law. “This is not merely about rules and regulations,” Lee wrote on Facebook. “We want and need to protect our young people and ensure they have every opportunity to thrive.” I’m not sure how corporal punishment, withholding their access to education, taking away their scholarships, or evicting them from their accommodation allows young people “every opportunity to thrive”. And I’m sure the ripple effects of such punishment will also be disproportionately felt by working class kids because, while better-off families might be able to hire private tutors and whatnot, poorer families aren’t as able to offset the impact of being suspended or kicked out of school.
☠️ The Ministry of Home Affairs is back with a survey claiming that a “large majority” of people from the region believe that Singapore’s death penalty is an effective deterrent to drug trafficking. Once again, a whole bunch of people believing that the death penalty is a deterrent doesn’t prove that it actually is a deterrent!
🏳️🌈 The Institute of Policy Studies is finding that Singaporean attitudes towards same-sex marriage and gay sex are liberalising.
Something interesting
I’m not sure I’m going to have sufficient energy for this after being a social creature all Sunday, but Academia SG will have a panel on what we should expect from our 15th Parliament.
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