Man probed for posing as woman and making racist remarks online

By David Ee, The Straits Times, 11 Jan 2014

A 22-YEAR-OLD man is under investigation for making racially insensitive remarks on Facebook while posing as a woman with the fictitious name of Heather Chua.

The comments targeting Malays last week caused an outcry among netizens, and led to several police reports being lodged.

Yet to be named, he is assisting police with investigations.

The "Heather Chua" moniker gained notoriety online from early last year after numerous posts denigrating, among other groups, the poor and the lower-income.

"She" also hit out at Institute of Technical Education graduates, public housing residents and national servicemen.

"Heather Chua" claimed to be a 40-year-old Singaporean who studied engineering at the National University of Singapore and attended Raffles Girls' School and Temasek Junior College.

"She" also claimed to live at Sentosa Cove. Photographs of luxury cars "she" purportedly owned were posted on the Facebook account.

But netizens pointed out how the pictures of the cars appeared to have been altered digitally.

Thai actress and blogger Pimpatchara Vajrasevee had also accused "Heather Chua" of passing off photographs of the actress as "her" profile picture.

In a Facebook post last night, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said he had received complaints about "Heather Chua", and was glad the Singapore Police Force had established the identity of the man believed to be behind the fictitious profile.

He added that the Internet should be harnessed responsibly.

"Let's remember to be mindful of our words and to respect one another.

"We must uphold our racial harmony and social cohesion," he wrote.

Another under probe for racist remarks on Internet
By Lim Yan Liang And David Ee, The Sunday Times, 12 Jan 2014

The police are investigating a Twitter user for making racist remarks on the social networking portal.

The user, who goes by the handle "iamclarena", allegedly posted a series of racist remarks against Indians on her Twitter account recently.

Responding to queries from The Sunday Times, the police confirmed that a report had been lodged against "a young woman" for making racially aggravating remarks on social media.

The woman, who also goes by the handle "Clarena Clanen TzeYi" on Facebook, has since deleted both social media accounts.

She is the second person in a week to be investigated for posting racist remarks on the Internet.

The Straits Times reported yesterday that a 22-year-old man is under investigation for making racially insensitive remarks on Facebook while posing as a woman with the fictitious name of Heather Chua.

The comments targeting Malays last week caused an outcry among netizens, and led to several police reports being lodged.

Yet to be named, he is assisting police with investigations.

The "Heather Chua" moniker gained notoriety online from early last year after numerous posts denigrating, among other groups, the poor and the lower-income.

The person also hit out at Institute of Technical Education (ITE) graduates, public housing residents and national servicemen.

"Heather Chua", who claimed to be a 40-year-old Singaporean who studied engineering at the National University of Singapore and attended Raffles Girls' School and Temasek Junior College, also claimed to live at Sentosa Cove.

Photographs of luxury cars purportedly owned by the person were posted on the Facebook account.

Thai actress and blogger Pimpatchara Vajrasevee had also accused "Heather Chua" of using the actress' photographs as "her" profile picture.

"Heather Chua's" Facebook account has since been deleted.

In a Facebook post last Friday, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said he had received complaints about "Heather Chua", and was glad the Singapore Police Force had established the identity of the man believed to be behind the fictitious profile.

He added that the Internet should be harnessed responsibly.

"Let's remember to be mindful of our words and to respect one another," he wrote. "We must uphold our racial harmony and social cohesion."

Nowhere to hide, so think before you type
By William Wan, General Secretary of Singapore Kindness Movement, TODAY, 15 Jan 2014

Two recent incidents of bad behaviour on social media have resulted in two people coming under police investigation (“Man under investigation for posting racist remarks as ‘Heather Chua’” and “Police report lodged over racist remarks on Twitter”, online; Jan 11).

Both incidents showed that the alleged perpetrators lacked understanding about the responsible use of social media.

Apparently, the person behind “Heather Chua” wanted to hide behind a cloak of anonymity, while the girl who made racist remarks claimed that it was simply a rant.

The Singapore Kindness Movement has been observing, with both bemusement and alarm, how careless or, worse, rude and antisocial we can be on social media, perhaps thinking that we are anonymous.

These two people are not the first and will not be the last, unless we learn that there is a point to being gracious, even online.

The thing most people forget about social media is that despite whatever privacy settings one has on one’s page, it is not private space but media, as the name implies. It is not a diary of one’s private thoughts, kept under lock and key.

The idea of there being a lock and key online is fallacious.

One is not truly anonymous nor is one’s personal data truly secure on social media. The CSI (Crime Scene Investigation) skills of the local online community have proven this many times.

One must treat social media as a public forum and behave accordingly. For example, the girl who proclaimed on her Twitter page that she was a racist claimed later that it was her private space.

She could have saved herself shame if she had first thought whether she would have said the same thing at a podium in front of 17,000 people, the number of followers she had on social media.

And would “Heather Chua” have used his real Facebook profile to say what he did?

Think before you type. It is not rocket science.