Singapore investigates racism related to China-Nepal disaster, Air India investment

Police are investigating “shameful” racist and xenophobic online comments about the China-Nepal disaster and Singapore Airlines’ (SIA) investment in Air India, Senior Minister K Shanmugam said on Saturday.

Mr Shanmugam told reporters that the Ministry of Digital Development and Information will also ask social media platforms to remove comments that breach guidelines.

“The media tells me that they had to remove several comments because they were so nasty. I don’t know if all the comments are all made by Singaporeans. But, I will say this – the comments are shameful, nasty, totally unacceptable,” added Mr Shanmugam, who is also home affairs minister and coordinating minister for national security.

“I have asked police to look into these comments.”

Under CNA’s social media moderation policy, users who post hate speech, racist or offensive comments are blocked from commenting on CNA’s social media pages.

In cases where such comments are widespread and persistent, CNA may totally turn off comments on its posts, as it did for several news posts related to the China-Nepal disaster.