The Speaker of Parliament calls out social media user who slurred him and said, “glad I helped to make his day”.
Clearly unhappy at the reference of the Facebook user, Tan said: “these days, even a simple post on enjoying makan (eating) with fellow Singaporeans needs to be made toxic by others. No idea who this Leonard is but guess it gave him a boost to do it perhaps? Glad I helped to make his day ?”
He added: “Truth is this is how it is on social media and some of these toxicities won’t go away. We can be in opposing camps and have different views. That’s ok. But how we discourse and engage shape the tone and climate of the society we live in.”
Tan’s naming and shaming of the social media user happened after the People’s Action Party (PAP) released a video on mental health on 30 April. In the emotionally-tinged video, Education Minister Chan Chun Sing said PAP MPs “get some very unkind comments online. They are attacks on us, our family. They can really hurt.”
The video received mixed reviews with one top commenter saying, “When you enter politics, you should be prepared for all this. Can’t be too sensitive. The video should have other people really struggling to cope with their lives. You need to strike a chord with the general population. General population doesn’t identify with politicians’ lives.”
Other top commenters on the video asked the PAP not to politicise mental health and profit from it.