Monitoring Uptake and Youth-safety Risks of Emerging Social Apps

Mr David Hoe asked the Minister for Digital Development and Information (a) how does IMDA monitors the Singapore uptake and youth-safety risks of emerging social apps such as Setlog and BeReal, including features like time-sensitive prompts, camera-first design and closed-group sharing; and (b) what criteria or indicators determines when such services have significant reach or impact and should be designated under the Codes of Practice for Online Safety.

The Minister of State for Digital Development and Information (Ms Rahayu Mahzam) (for the Minister for Digital Development and Information): Mr Speaker, the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) closely monitors developments in the online landscape and tracks emerging safety risks for young users, including those highlighted by the Member. To do so, IMDA draws on a range of sources, including public feedback, industry engagements, market data and developments in other jurisdictions.

Like many commercial digital products, apps and social media services come and go. We therefore focus our regulatory efforts on types of online communication services that have become widely used in Singapore and where safety risks have been clearly flagged. These include social media services and app stores.

Under the Broadcasting Act, IMDA may direct a social media service or app store to disable Singapore users' access to egregious content, such as content that advocates or instructs on suicide or self-harm. A social media service with significant reach or impact in Singapore may also be required to comply with the Code of Practice for Online Safety – Social Media Services. IMDA considers various factors as laid out in the Broadcasting Act, including the extent and nature of the effect that the service has on people and communities in Singapore.

Mr Hoe.

Thank you, Mr Speaker, and I thank the Minister of State for her response. I will be first to admit that sometimes, I feel like I am still doing the catch-up game, especially knowing what social media apps that our youths are using, and if it was not for the youths that I have interacted with, I would not have known that Setlog and BeReal are the two apps gaining the most popularity that our young people are using.

Against this backdrop, I have three supplementary questions. The first, given such emerging apps that are gaining popularity that are not on the designated list, how can parents be assured or how can parents know whether such apps have the adequate protection for children?

Second, could the Government consider to provide periodic guidance for those apps that are gaining popularity, but not on the designated list, on what are some of the key features and potential risks that caregivers, parents and teachers should look out for?

And thirdly, given the speed of popularity of such apps that that our young people are engaged with, I would like to understand how fast does IMDA assess and to put them on the designated list?

Mr Speaker, I thank the Member for the questions raised. His questions really stem from a very profound concern about how the social media platforms and things online are developing fairly quickly, sometimes ahead of regulation and ahead of what parents can understand.

I recognise this, and indeed, this is something that is of concern. In response to his questions, perhaps I will break it up in two parts. The first part is what is already available now, and what the Ministry for Digital Development and Information is doing. I want to highlight the fact that today, we already have some safeguards in place that would protect our young from inappropriate content or harmful content, and things that they may not be appropriate for their age.

For one, we have the Code of Practice for Online Safety for the app distribution services. So, there is already a gateway there, in that there are age assurance measures that already have to be put in place and this will effectively take away those who are below a certain age from exploring some of the applications which are not suitable for them.

We also have a framework that we already have put in place in terms of assessing and identifying some of the emerging issues or apps or products out there. These are already ongoing workstreams, there is a framework.

I believe the Member is really concerned about some of these things that are already in place. We do regularly track this. What we look at, as mentioned earlier, are data, feedback from people, we look at emerging data from overseas, we also study market trends.

So, there are frameworks in place and when we decide whether we want to impose certain regulations, we will have to look at what is the extent and nature of the effect on the population. These are some of the considerations. So, I want to assure the Member that this is something that is already ongoing and there is a framework that we apply to assess what regulations need to be put in place.

On the second part, as the Member rightly points out, this is something that is going to be almost like a "whack-a-mole" situation. Things are just going to evolve. And therefore, we have to take a multi-pronged, whole-of-society approach in this.

The Member rightly pointed out that it will be useful for parents to be alerted to some information about trending things that they should be keeping a lookout for. In this, we have already worked on a national campaign, "Screen Smart from The Start", which is intended to provide parents with the information with fundamental guidelines, so that they can build healthy digital habits among their children.

This is something that is going to be continuing to be built on and evolved. It does bring in different partners. We already have IMDA's Digital for Life portal, which provides some of these resources. We are working with different partners to constantly provide digital parenting workshops and conversations for different age groups, different communities, and hopefully, this is something that we can do together as a whole of community.

On that note, I hope that the Member understands that this is something that is going to be a work-in-progress, and we do welcome and encourage support from parents as well as the larger community.