I think there is something wrong to what is shown below where the Home Team News Facebook fanpage shared a video which it produced, from the Minister of Home Affairs and Law, K Shanmugam’s personal Facebook fanpage.
Mr K Shanmugam’s page is a personal Facebook page, while the Home Team News’s page is a Facebook page for public service.
It would have been right if the video was posted on a Facebook page that was meant for the Minister of Home Affairs and then Home Team shares from the FB page.
But in this case, it is sharing from a politician’s Facebook page which gives political exposure. Is the Minister paying for the exposure?
Apart from Home Team, Singapore Police Force (SPF) also shared directly from the Home Affair Minister.
Also if the video was about the Home Affairs Minister, it would probably be somewhat appropriate but the video is about Deputy Assistant Commissioner (NS) Azhar… So why is the video first shared on the Minister’s personal page then reshared by Home Team News and SPF?
Given that the video was not produced or paid by the Minister himself but using state resources. So why is the video posted on the Minister’s personal Facebook page and then shared by Home Team and SPF instead of the two posting the video on their own FB pages? Why was it not the case where the Minister reshares after it is posted on Home Team News’ Facebook fanpage?
For those who still find it hard to understand what is so wrong about the above.
Say if all the different Ministries do a video about their service personnel using the Ministry’s money, pass the video to their Ministers to be shared the video on their personal Facebook page which would eventually be used to promote themselves to their potential voters. The ministries then reshare the video to the public fanpages ( ie, CPF board, Health Promotion Board, MINDEF and etc) and boost the video on Facebook using state resources.
While the ministries achieve their purpose of publicity, who else benefits from such an arrangement?
I would say, this is yet another example how the public service fails to differentiate between public and private matters or maybe there is no confusion at all as what Dr Lee Weiling and Mr Lee Hsien Yang had claimed in their allegations.
