For the first time in history, Facebook had to revise user posts at the request of the Singapore government

On November 30, Singapore asked Facebook to correct a post on this social network with false content, fake under the country's new anti-fake law. The move raises questions about how Facebook adheres to governments' requests to edit content.

The Singapore government's request came after a Facebook post appeared on November 23. A post from an account called Alex Tan, now based in Australia, contained false information, accusing the Singapore government of arresting whistleblowers and electoral fraud.

The Singaporean government initially actively contacted Alex Tan's account and requested that the information be corrected and removed. However, this account is determined not to delete the post and assert that he is an Australian citizen so he does not need to listen to the Singapore government.

At this point, Facebook declined to comment on his post, but the social network decided to take action after receiving a response from the Singapore government.

Currently the post of Alex Tan appear the words "Facebook is leagally required to tell you là Singapore foverment says this post has falske information", roughly translated: "The Singapore government requested Facebook to corrected that this post contains false information " . However, this message line is only visible to Facebook users in Singapore. Meanwhile, users in other countries will not be able to see this text and the post will be retained as usual.

In recent years, Facebook has often been criticized for handling somewhat mildly and not really drastically with the issue of fake news. Despite the efforts of the Facebook team, violent, provocative and fake content is still rampant on social networks. Besides, Facebook is also often criticized for constantly obeying the orders of governments in quelling dissent views.

According to Facebook's transparent report, the social network has blocked content allegedly violated by local governments. The estimated number of cases reached nearly 18,000 worldwide as of June 2019.

However, Singapore was the first country to ask Facebook to publicly correct the false content. According to the Asian Internet Alliance, Singapore's anti-fake law is considered to be the most influential law today. However, there are also activists who oppose the law because it can undermine Internet freedom, not only in Singapore but also in other Southeast Asian countries.

Refer to Nbcnews