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Conflicts of interest

Facebook's head of public policy for SE Asia is also going to be an MP for one of the governments clamping down hardest on it. Facebook declined to make a comment on this ...

(from Buzzfeed)

The questioning of Facebook at the hearing in March was also notable for who barely spoke. Alvin Tan, the company’s public policy lead for Southeast Asia, remained silent next to Milner as he was put through the wringer by the minister.

Tan, more than anyone at the company, understands the views of the ruling PAP and how to interact with its leaders. A native Singaporean, he was the author of Facebook’s submission to the committee, which argued against a new law.

“We do not believe that legislation is the best approach to addressing the issue. Singapore already has a variety of existing laws and regulations which address hate speech, defamation and the spreading of false news,” he wrote.

But Tan is in a delicate position due to the fact that he’s active within the PAP and was publicly named by the party as a potential candidate to run for a seat in the next election.

Last December, the Straits Times, one of Singapore’s dominant mainstream newspapers, reported that Tan was on a list of 200 promising Singaporeans identified by the PAP as possible candidates in 2019. Tan’s Facebook profile also features multiple photos of him at events with a current MP from the PAP named Lily Neo.

“We would still dare to, at the risk of being called out as ‘illiberal,’ we would dare to say that we need to take our own measures to deal with deliberate online falsehoods.”
“This guy is actually running the Southeast Asia policy [for Facebook] and yet he is affiliated with the ruling party in Singapore,” said Terry Xu, who runs the Online Citizen, an independent website covering Singapore politics and society that’s often critical of the government.

MPs in Singapore are part-time, which means many hold down other jobs, some with big companies, while serving in parliament. But the prospect of an MP also leading public policy for the dominant social platform in Singapore could be a new and potentially conflicting precedent — especially given that the new law will place more responsibility on Facebook and other platforms to quickly remove content at the government’s behest.

In response to questions about Tan’s involvement with the PAP, a Facebook spokesperson said that, if elected, Tan would recuse himself from any government matters related to Facebook, and that any political activity on his part takes place outside of his work at the company. (Facebook declined to make someone available to speak on the record about the new law.)