We believe in freedom of expression and celebrating the uniqueness of Singaporeans, even the not-so-nice bits. Oh yeah, we also get a big kick of doing all this.

TalkingCock.com is a satirical feature site for Singaporeans, i.e. we write articles which poke fun at local events and happenings.

However, it doesn't mean we write just nonsense (funny though that may be). Satire is always rooted in reality. Which is why even though we're a humourous site, we try to adhere to professional journalistic principles. This helps us avoid or lessen the impact of defamation suits from people with thin skins. (Believe it or not, there are a lot of them, especially in kiasu Singapore.)

Ultimately what we want to do is build a community of Singaporeans with a sense of humour and who enjoy life in all its complexity.

In a recent Straits Times, TalkingCock.com was implicitly labelled as a 'political website', which may fall under government regulation during the runup to elections.  

This is despite the fact that TalkingCock is clearly NOT a political website (i.e. it has no political agenda of its own) but a satirical one, i.e. it engages in social comment through the use of biting humour. Commenting on politics is part of this, but not our sole aim at all. Nor are we partisan in our satire - we make fun of both the government and the opposition.

The unfortunate labelling of TalkingCock is due to the overbroad definition or perception of 'political site' as any site "which feature(s) local politics in their discussions or online articles."  This, in our humble opinion, is a patent nonsense.  

TalkingCock believes that it should not be regulated for the following reasons:

1.  Under the Singapore Constitution, citizens have the right to freedom of expression.

2. The content in TalkingCock is not of the sort that justifies abridging this fundamental right under the Constitution.  It does not threaten Singapore's national security, foreign relations, public order or morality, and it is ludicrous to believe it does or ever will. Nor is it defamatory as our articles are clearly stated to be purely fictitious and humourous and not to be relied on. Frivolity and irreverence are not illegal, and a citizen has no legal right not to be outraged or offended.

3. If any site with any political content is considered 'political', then all newspaper sites are also political. And if sites like TalkingCock or Sintercom are regulated, so should the Straits Times, The New Paper, Project Eyeball and Young PAP.

4.  We believe the citizens of Singapore are now intelligent enough to cast their votes on the basis of issues, and not uncorroborated rumour.  In any event, it should be the duty of political parties to address issues or rumours rather than seeking prophylactically to quell opinion.

We urge the government to act with restraint as regulation of speech invariably restricts plurality of debate and will hamper the creation of an environment where citizens engage in dynamic and creative thought. It also makes us look very cock on the international stage, and unbecoming of a global, 21st century metropolis.

The government has had a stellar record of economic achievement, and we hope they will match this in the social arena by demonstrating the tolerance of opinion and diversity that makes nations great, and not merely rich.

And then we won't have to be forced to issue these cheong hay (and tiresomely serious) statements and get back to frivolous fun.

Big Cock
Editor in Chief