HardwareZone (HWZ) is a forum that is owned by SPH Magazines, which will be (if I am not wrong) moved under SPH Media Holdings Pte Ltd, a non-profit entity that the government of Singapore intends to fund using taxpayers' money.

HWZ is infamous for its sub-forum called Eat-Drink-Man-Woman, mainly due to the frequent anti-Malay, anti-Muslim and anti-Islam remarks made by several of its members.

It's not an exaggeration to say that at least one offensive remark will be found there every few days. Sometimes in any given day, depending on how often a Malay/Muslim individual is in the news for the wrong reasons. One Malay gets arrested, the whole community gets insulted. One Muslim gets arrested, the whole religion gets insulted. One Malay / Muslim highlighting a race/religious issue, the entire race/religion gets lambasted for not being inclusive.

Mind you, I'm not the only one to notice the racism. Mothership.sg wrote an article about it: https://mothership.sg/2015/04/islamophobia-and-racism-are-cancers-in-the-hardwarezone-forums-which-need-curing/.

From the URL above, you can see that the post dated as far back as 2015.

Anyway, as of several months ago, I have:

• lodged a police report against that forum.

• compiled a list of offensive posts <-- read all of these when you have the time.

• emailed Eugene Wee, the head of SPH Magazines

  • He replied once but ignored my subsequent emails.

• emailed the administrator of the forum

  • Like Eugene, he said he would do something about it. Apparently, he did not do much.

• emailed the Mufti of Singapore

  • He said that since I've already lodged a police report, let the police do their work.

• emailed high profile Muslim celebrities to help raise awareness

  • NONE REPLIED

Ever since that Mothership's article was published, have you read in the news about anyone from HWZ getting arrested for insulting the Malays/Muslims? I'm sure that the answer is NO. And that's one of the biggest mysteries of Singapore.

You may argue that it's because those insulting remarks were only sensitive to me but not anything that would warrant a criminal charge. Well, if that's what you think, then read on.

Cartoon of Prophet Muhammad (pbuh)

Several days ago, one of the members posted this cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) and Jesus in a video game fight scene. (I took the liberty to use an orange marker to cover the actual depictions).

I lodged a police report and subsequently emailed a few VVIPs who recently made public statements that there is no place for racism in Singapore. To my dismay, only less than a handful replied.

Seeing President Halimah Yacob speaking up about the asatizah poll, I wrote to her. Fortunately, her staff informed me that the matter will be referred to the relevant agencies.

Reply from Ministry of Communications and Information (MCI)

Before my email to Mdm Halimah, at the behest of one of the VVIPs (I reckon), MCI sent me this:

So, did their reiteration work? Obviously not because I can still find fresh insulting posts.

Moderators hiding behind the forum's disclaimer and practice double standards

The moderator(s) have grown bolder seeing that my effort to bring that site down is going nowhere. They hide behind their disclaimer:

"This forum is moderated by volunteer moderators who will react only to members' feedback on posts. Moderators are not employees or representatives of HWZ. Forum members and moderators are responsible for their own posts."

Recently, one of them posted this:

He claims that any user can just use the Report feature to bring attention to them any offending post for their moderation. But the reality is that, such a feature only works if there is a minimum number of reports made on each post. Considering that the forum comprises mainly atheist, Buddhist, Christian, and Taoist Chinese members, the feature is useless because not many properly behaving members bother to report.

The feature works in the racists favour, though. When a Malay/Muslim member defends his race/religion by giving the racists a taste of their own medicine, the racists will report the user, who ended up having his account banned, sometimes permanently. This is one example.

Furthermore, why should someone register as a member before being able to report?

Regardless, the disclaimer is moot because the admin and head - both of whom are salaried staff - of HWZ have been informed but they have done nothing much, if at all.

The inaction is puzzling

I don't really know why the authorities haven't done anything over the years but what I know is that I'll be reading the news to see if any of those people make a public condemnation about HWZ and most importantly I'll see if anyone gets arrested for posting that cartoon.

I'll end things with this: Racism and xenophobic behaviour will become normalised if S'pore is not careful, warns Shanmugam

https://sphedmw.blogspot.com/2021/05/are-authorities-and-leaders-turning.html