As a new technology, the Internet defies censorship because of characteristics such as information explosion, de-massification, convergence, computer culture and globalisation.

First, the Internet has the ability to explode information onto every user. More information can be gathered and distributed at a faster pace, meaning that the flow of information in circulation increases at an exponential rate. In Singapore, however, the number of censors at work has not kept pace with the explosive growth in the amount of censorable materials.

Censorship in Singapore is undertaken by the Censorship Section of the Ministry of Information and the Arts. Figures from the Censorship Section show that the number of censors has increased by 80 percent in the 10 years from 9 in 1983 to 16 in 1993. The amount of materials that the Censorship Section has to vet, however, has increased 400 percent over the same period--from 102,352 in 1983 to 408,863 in 1993.

On a per-person basis, the workload has increased five-fold from about 5,500 in 1978 to more than 25,000 in 1993.

Employing more censors is, at best, a short-term solution and in a tight labor market, an expensive one too. Censorship is also made difficult as the Section has only begun to obtain the equipment necessary to vet electronic publications. Vetting, already selective even in the 1980s, has to be even more so in the 1990s as the capacity to censor is unlikely to match the amount of information being generated.

Second, the Internet borders between being a mass and a specialized medium. The information available on the Internet is not intended for the mass audience. Usenet groups and web sites, for example, are intended to cater to a specialized audience. Information on these groups and sites tend to be less mass and more customized, and the distribution points are multiple. This decentralization suggests that censorship could technically follow the Censorship Review Committee's principle of differentiation by target audience, i.e. homes vs. businesses, the young vs. adults. However, the nature of the Internet is that it has all the potential to be a mass medium. This poses a problem for Singapore censors because the greater reach of material calls for a heavier degree of censorship. The Internet therefore poses a problem for the censorship guidelines as it conflates the distinctions between public and private consumption.

Third, the Internet is an example of a convergent medium: it has a mail function, a news-reading function and a computing-software function. Convergence poses problems for censorship because it becomes difficult to classify the new medium and to decide who regulates them and how. Singapore's current censorship regime assumes that the media are distinct and separate from one another.

There are three regulatory regimes for the Internet. First, it could be classified as a telecommunications service because one major use is electronic mail. Second, it could be considered a computer service because one needs a computer to access the Internet. Third, the availability of information through Usenet group and web-sites, where they can reach a wide audience electronically, could qualify the Internet as a broadcasting service. Singapore has chosen the third option: to treat the Internet as a broadcast service. It is to be regulated under the recently-passed Singapore Broadcasting Authority (SBA) Act, which defines broadcasting broadly-in terms of programmer transmission to all or part of the public, regardless of the means used. The Act could require computer networks to be licensed by gazetting them as "licensable broadcasting services", but they have been excluded for now. Regulation in Singapore is such that there is no censorship of mail, a little censorship of computing for pornographic software and heavier censorship of news. The Internet therefore falls into cracks in regulation.

Fourth, censorship does not sit well with computer culture, where maximum (and often anarchistic) freedom is celebrated. Cyberspace culture is not value-free in that it privileges free speech and the free flow of ideas as a route to social and intellectual progress. For example, the US Senate Commerce Committee's proposal to ban obscene material in cyberspace faces strong opposition from Internet users and scepticism from critics that the collection of networks can at all be controlled.Apart from a council that sets technical standards, there is no central controlling body for the Internet. As a result, any of its services can carry undesirable content, be it text, sound or image. System administrators at individual sites may censor by restricting the materials that users may access, but this does not prevent users from bypassing local service providers and accessing such restricted materials directly from overseas service providers.Besides, the Internet is thus inherently resistant to censorship, both in its operating philosophy and technical set-up. Any kind of censorship is read by the Internet as "damage" and the system will attempt to correct it. Dynamic re-routing ensures that if one communication link is broken, the traffic can be re-directed through other existing links. The Internet, after all, was designed for military use and the design criteria were fault tolerance and reliability even after a nuclear attack.

Fifth, the Internet highlights a major problem in global interconnectivity: what legal standard applies? Legally, everything is allowed on the Internet as long as it does not violate the laws in the country where the originator resides. But even if the law of the land is broken, it is well-nigh impossible to enforce criminal laws outside of one's country. For example, it would be difficult to pinpoint just who is responsible for the distribution of pornography when the pornography has flown in through an interconnected network. Further, controlling the flow of information into the receiving country also means controlling the flow of information from the originating country. Even if the laws were in place in the receiving country, there would still have to be corresponding enforcement and perhaps extradition arrangements in the originating country as well. The trend of global interconnectivity means that any attempts at censorship has to consider the international dimensions. The Internet not only throws up the question of what standard of censorship to be adopted, but also suggests that local standards have to be worked out in mutual juxtaposition with global standards.

A final point is that legislation and case-law tend to proceed piecemeal and almost always lag behind changes in technology. The current regulatory framework was developed in the context of the traditional print media, and the relatively newer media of radio and television broadcasting, telecommunications, films and videotapes. If censorship is to be enforced on a concordant basis, the trend of convergence requires that the present laws be updated.