Profiling Tan Kin Lian

A person is gauged by his/her acts and speech. There seems to be quite a lot of news from Tan Kin Lian. The following is extracted from internet. I don't draw conclusion. It is up to you.

He portrayed NUS voyeur Nicholas Lim and mother as victims of the case just because the actual victim post his picture and name on Instagram.  The voyeuristic act is ignored. A "controversial statement" according to Tan Kin Lian himself.

"Paying Johor 15 million a year saves 15 million on defense". He thinks Singapore is going to make war with Malaysia for water. Also the idea of "paying Johor 15 million" is giving Malaysia what they wanted. There is no other way?

He said he will stand for election of enough like minded people come forward to support him. "I will change my mind if I do not see enough of them coming forward". He expects to be ushered into parliament? First he ask for 300 likes on FaceBook then he ask for 1000 after it is achieved.

He posted "Changi Airport custom officer - Are you Mr Tan? Any Tongkat Ali to declare? A traitor tipped him off". After that he claimed he was joking on Twitter. In his earlier post he described how to make Tongkat Ali tea.

He cancelled Grab booking 3 times in a row. Maybe he don't know how Grab works.

He ran in the 2011 Presidential election and forfeited $48,000 because he cannot get enough votes.

 He said on Facebook "I boarded SMRT 857 and found that I was in Mumbai." A statement unbecoming of a presidential candidate. He apologized and deleted the post.

According to some his departure from insurance cooperative is not entirely voluntary.

Some accused him of being a detractor of the presidential election. He instead accused Tan Jee Say of being "the last candidate" thus should consider withdrawal. It is noted that he only got 4.9% vote whereas Tan Jee Say has 25%.

http://tankinlian.blogspot.com/2011/07/sia-website.html is yet another blog of his showing how much he knows about internet of things.

He posted his personal data online and dares people to hack his SingPass. Well, his SingPass got locked out within hours.

The above are just gathered from internet. There is no checks on whether those are false news. At least I don't see any report that they are false news.

NUS Peeping Tom Case

In olden days when internet was not that popular. Any such offence simply gets unnoticed even if the accused gets persecuted. The victim does not have any further say as to whether the punishment is just.

With the IoT, at least the victim can voice out the feeling of injustice. Although the victim's post on social media could be viewed as 'doxxing', it is still a victim's voice. Where else could the victim voice out the frustration.

Netizens have various views and comments even politicians chipped in. The following are comments on some of it.

1. The police. The police have decided not to prosecute the accused based on their reasoning that the offender is just a first offender with no traits of such offensive behavior. They therefore give the accused a 12 month conditional warning. If they prosecute the offender then there will be a permanent record which will ruing a person's life even before he get started in life.

2. NUS. NUS is like any educational institution, which is supposed to uphold individual's privacy and integrity. The initial punishment is suspense from a semester, banned from entering campus residence and write a letter of apology to victim.  I am not here to judge the punishment but it does looks like a slap on the hand. Of course I can't say how much punishment is enough but it is not even near the police's punishment level. There are already 20 NUS previous cases in last 3 years and there is no review on how to stop it. They finally apologize and get to hold a review on this.

3. The accused. Beside being given punishment by Police, NUS, Great Eastern, he only express "no excuse" in a ST interview. No public apology was given  as far as I can see.

4. The victim. As said before, her post could be viewed as 'doxxing'. There are better ways to express frustration than to identify the person with pictures in social media.

5. 'Trial by social media'. Those against voicing out saying it is TBSM. However, if this wasn't brought up, nobody knows about it and the vicious cycle continues unabated and unknown. At least now we know that Police have their reason and NUS no longer wants to keep it quiet.

6. Great Eastern. As a company, it cannot be seen to be doing nothing. Firing the accused is the only way out.

7. Agrarian. The company cuts ties with NUS on condition that NUS expel the accused. I don't think this is the right way. It becomes issuing a threat to NUS. Others simply says that the company join in to the media rush to be heard and seen, a typical business tactic.

8. A blogger seems to be biased against the victim in her lengthy blog on the issue. She question about the rights of the accused future. One other post that talks about the blog question how she feels if she or her family member is the victim.

9. Tan Kin Lian is giving support to the accused. He portrayed them as victims. If he is referring to 'doxxing' then it may be true. It depends on who is viewing the incident at what instance? I will be grossly unjust if the focus is only on the consequence of the victim's action than the voyeur's action. It reminds me of the "Singapore Kindness movement" which sides with the perpetrator rather than the wronged.

9. Right to be forgotten. Singapore has this Personal Data Protection Act in place. This should give the accused back his life.