UPDATED 07:14 EDT / NOVEMBER 04 2013

NEWS

Anonymous hacks The Straits Times, threatens war against Singapore government

Singapore’s leading newspaper, The Straits Times, became the latest victim of hacktivist group Anonymous this morning, after the collective hacked its website to announce the start of an all-out war against the country’s government.

A member of Anonymous posted the following message onto The Straits Times’ blog, in retaliation for a ‘misleading’ article written by one of its journalists, Irene Tham:

“Earlier today upon discovering the existence of a YouTube video of ours, a [Straits Times] correspondent by the name of Irene Tham chose to publicize an article distorting our words and intentions,” the post said.

“Ireme Tham, since you had the ignorant nerve of invading our world (the internet) to speak blasphemous lies, then we took it upon ourselves to invade your tiny little space to voice our issues over a few matter[s]. We sincerely hope you [won’t] mind.”

Tham’s article discussed a recent video posted onto YouTube, in which Anonymous warns the Singapore government to reconsider controversial new internet laws that require news sites with 50,000 or more readers to apply for licenses to operate – something that’s seen as a threat to bloggers, social media communities and free speech in general.

In the video (posted below), Anonymous threatens that it will be “forced to go to war with the Singapore government”, however it claims that Tham changed the quote to say “war against Singapore”, implying that the collective has something against the country itself.

Both Tham’s article and Anonymous’ blog have since been taken offline, but the BBC reports that a cached version of the post revals that the collective is calling for Tham to either apologise or resign, and promises that if its demands aren’t met, it’ll taken even further action against the paper.

However, it looks as though The Straits Times is ready to fight back. In a statement by its parent company Singapore Press Holdings, the paper said that it stands by its reporters and their reports, and adds that the police are currently investigating the matter.

Aside from going to war with The Straits Times, Anonymous also promised in its video that if Singapore’s government goes ahead with its new internet rules, it will “attack the infrastructure of Singapore on the 5th of November,” a.k.a. Guy Fawkes Day.


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