TRS Owners - one Singaporean, one Australian arrested!

[Playtime]

BTW, TR$ may actually had indirectly admitted profiteering from their site in an article which supposed to be written by one of its countless "anonymous readers". (dated 25 Feb 2015)

 

Following is taken from Google cache before the site was forced off the the net on Sunday.

 

https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:AAjzOoAMCCkJ:therealsingapore.com/content/anything-wrong-trs-being-profitable-website+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=sg

IS THERE ANYTHING WRONG WITH TRS BEING A PROFITABLE WEBSITE?

 

Post date:

 

25 Feb 2015 - 2:37pm

 

 

 

Dear TRS,

I have read your website and other alternative websites for many years and am confused why there is such a big fuss being made now about TRS in the mainstream media and other websites....

 

 

 

SPH isn't exactly a charity either.

And over the years, it didn't get called the 154th for no reason.

 

It has done more "fiction" and sow more "discord" than sites like TRS. They are just both sides of the same coin.

Why should one extreme go while the other stay? The answer is pretty obvious.

 

That is The heart of the issue.

[5115jay]

TRS was one of my favourite news apps. I liked to read the comments after each article to get a feel of the general sentiments. I also used to like Yahoo surveys which i don't see these days.

[Joseph22]

If the best you can do is name calling when people don't agree with your politics, perhaps you should gtfo of the kitchen to avoid the heat.

I think u are the one who cannot stand the heat. If what I did is name calling then wonder what those calling people dogs or ib are.

[Wishcumstrue]

TRS was one of my favourite news apps. I liked to read the comments after each article to get a feel of the general sentiments. I also used to like Yahoo surveys which i don't see these days.

 

I believe TR$ is indeed your favorite site (it is not an "app", btw) considering that this is your 3rd post in MCF and the only one topic aside form getting a resale car.

 

Missing TR$ badly ?

[Jman888]

Miss TR$ ?? can try it's clone Straits Times Review

SPH exploring options, including legal recourse, against Straits Times Review site

PUBLISHED ON MAY 6, 2015

BY WALTER SIM AND NUR ASYIQIN MOHAMAD SALLEH

Blogger and former political candidate Alex Tan, who runs the Straits Times Review website, which has nothing to do with The Straits Times. Singapore Press Holdings is exploring all options, including legal recourse, against the website that borrows the name of its flagship newspaper. -- PHOTO: ST FILE

SINGAPORE - Media group Singapore Press Holdings (SPH) is exploring all options, including legal recourse, against a new website that borrows the name of its flagship newspaper The Straits Times, it said on Wednesday.

The company has also lodged a trademark infringement complaint to Facebook against the Straits Times Review (STR) Facebook page, calling for it to be removed. It said: "We understand that Facebook is looking into our complaint."

The STR website, which has nothing to do with The Straits Times, was registered on April 18 and characterises itself as an "independent news site based in Australia".

It is run by blogger and former political candidate Alex Tan, who had co-founded controversial website The Real Singapore (TRS) and is now based in Sydney.

Mr Tan, a systems engineer, was also formerly associated with Temasek Review, which became TR Emeritus in 2011, and contested in Ang Mo Kio GRC under the Reform Party banner during the 2011 General Elections.

In a Facebook post dated April 21 calling for public contributions, STR had named TRS as one of its "partner sites". A May 4 post added: "Not all articles will be published as I want this to be a permanent initiative and as an alternative to the mainstream media."

TRS was taken down on Sunday, after the Media Development Authority (MDA) ordered its administrators to cease operations and suspended their statutory class license.

Two of its editors, Singaporean Yang Kaiheng, 26, and his Australian girlfriend Ai Takagi, 22, were charged with seven counts of sedition on April 15 for publishing articles that allegedly promoted ill will and hostility between different races or classes here.

They have been ordered by MDA not to resume the site's operations under another name. Their lawyer Choo Zheng Xi has said that they have nothing to do with STR.

The site administrator of STR declined to respond to queries from The Straits Times.

Lawyer Jonathan Kok of RHTLaw Taylor Wessing said that sites registered by foreign entities and hosted abroad are outside the legal jurisdiction of Singapore.

But the MDA still has powers to block websites from being viewed here should they be found to have objectionable content that is deemed to be offensive or harmful to Singapore's social, racial or political fabric, he added.

The MDA blocks a limited number of sites - most of which are pornographic - as a "symbolic statement" of Singapore's society values, the authority said on its website.

In 2013, it blocked extramarital dating website Ashley Madison. And from Feb 2 this year, it has also blocked unauthorised websites that promote, facilitate or advertising remote gambling under a new law to curtail online gambling.

 

 

 

[Wishcumstrue]

SPH isn't exactly a charity either.

And over the years, it didn't get called the 154th for no reason.

 

It has done more "fiction" and sow more "discord" than sites like TRS. They are just both sides of the same coin.

Why should one extreme go while the other stay? The answer is pretty obvious.

 

That is The heart of the issue.

 

 

You point fail to detract from the fact TR$ is run by foreingers, administrated outside of Singapore and had refused to publish its source of revenue income.

 

TR$ and its owner has no stake in Singapore's interest, created lies of the years and deliberately exploit Singapore's social issues.

 

Pure and simple.

[5115jay]

 

I believe TR$ is indeed your favorite site (it is not an "app", btw) considering that this is your 3rd post in MCF and the only one topic aside form getting a resale car.

 

Missing TR$ badly ?

LOL. Well, TRS had an app that you could download from the app store. In fact, I can still view their past articles on my mobile device via the app. On a separate note, I am somewhat amused that you actually took the interest to look me up here. Yea, I am a newbie here looking for a cheap car for office use. If someone has a decent car to dispose with at least 6 months to let go, do pm me. cheers

[Playtime]

I think u are the one who cannot stand the heat. If what I did is name calling then wonder what those calling people dogs or ib are.

Pretty sure I never called u any.

But I will engage issues. Especially inconvenient ones.

[Joseph22]

Pretty sure I never called u any.

But I will engage issues. Especially inconvenient ones.

why are you feeling guilty conscious I didn't even say those are commented by you.

[Wishcumstrue]

LOL. Well, TRS had an app that you could download from the app store. In fact, I can still view their past articles on my mobile device via the app. On a separate note, I am somewhat amused that you actually took the interest to look me up here. Yea, I am a newbie here looking for a cheap car for office use. If someone has a decent car to dispose with at least 6 months to let go, do pm me. cheers

 

Oh? TR$ also have their own mobile app ? wow...the owners must had lots of vested interestin in running that site.

 

Anyway, since you still can view their content on via their app, can you check if this is what was published in Feb ?

 

IS THERE ANYTHING WRONG WITH TRS BEING A PROFITABLE WEBSITE?

Anyway, checking MCF poster's backgnd is only a few clicks away.

Here in MCF also have foreigner commenting on almost everything political ...LOL

 

Sure have one. Some foriegner even setup their own website specifically to target local politics.

 

Either you take them as comic relief or just another subversion work with agenda.

[Mercs]

Former The Real Singapore editors open ramen stalls at NUS

http://singaporeseen.stomp.com.sg/singaporeseen/this-urban-jungle/former-the-real-singapore-editors-open-ramen-stalls-at-nus

[Wishcumstrue]

Former The Real Singapore editors open ramen stalls at NUS

http://singaporeseen.stomp.com.sg/singaporeseen/this-urban-jungle/former-the-real-singapore-editors-open-ramen-stalls-at-nus

 

Great.

 

A Singapore-registered f&b coy owned by a couple of FT who once ran a defunct political website that specialised in promoting anti-foreigners and attacking FT in Singapore..

 

End of the day, they still have to make a living...as FT here.

 

Life is full of irony..

Edited September 18, 2015 by Wishcumstrue

[Jman888]

Wife to plead guilty, husband to claim trial in sedition case

PUBLISHED 5 HOURS AGO

 

Australian Takagi faces seven counts of sedition and an eighth charge over failing to produce financial statements on the website's advertising revenue to the police. ST PHOTO: WONG KWAI CHOW

 

Prosecutor says couple jointly ran The Real Singapore website, exploited racial faultlines for their self-interest

Rachel Au-Yong

 

The trial of the husband-and-wife team accused of sedition, over articles on a now-defunct sociopolitical website, began with an unusual turn yesterday.

 

Australian Ai Takagi, 23, who is charged with seven counts of sedition for articles published by The Real Singapore (TRS), told the district court she would plead guilty.

 

But her Singaporean husband Yang Kaiheng, 27, is denying the charges and claiming trial.

 

The articles posted on TRS between October 2013 and February last year are alleged to have promoted ill will and hostility between different races or classes in Singapore.

 

The couple also face an eighth charge, for failing to produce financial statements on the website's advertising revenue to the police.

 

In his opening remarks yesterday, Deputy Public Prosecutor G. Kannan said the couple "maliciously exploit(ed) racial and xenophobic faultlines" and deliberately sowed discord between Singaporeans and foreigners from the Philippines, India and China "for nothing more than their self-interest".

 

The couple were "wildly successful in their efforts to profit from the ill-will and hostility that they were peddling", Deputy Public Prosecutor G. Kannan said. Based on their bank statements, they earned between A$20,000 (S$20,400) and more than A$50,000 per month, he said.

 

Though the website purported to be the "voice of average Singaporeans", DPP Kannan said the reality was that it reflected the views of "Takagi, a foreigner who had never resided, studied or worked in Singapore, and Yang, a disgruntled Singaporean".

 

He said Takagi did the "outrageous" act of adopting the Malay name "Farhan" in one of the contentious articles to hide her identity as a foreigner while fostering xenophobia.

 

The couple, who married last October, were "wildly successful in their efforts to profit from the ill will and hostility that they were peddling", he added.

 

Based on their bank statements, they earned between A$20,000 (S$20,500) and more than A$50,000 a month, he said. The court was not told when these sums were earned.

 

To bring in more advertising revenue, the couple "quite plainly regarded accuracy, propriety and truthfulness as necessary casualties", he added.

 

DPP Kannan cited an article that falsely asserted a Filipino family had caused an incident between the police and participants of the Thaipusam procession last year.

 

He also said that TRS was jointly run by the couple, and that evidence will "show Yang's continued, sustained and intimate involvement in every aspect of the running of TRS".

 

But the couple's lawyer, Mr Choo Zheng Xi, said Yang was not the person behind TRS. "He will deny the distribution, the proprietorship and the writing of the articles in question," he said.

 

The maximum punishment under the Sedition Act is a $5,000 fine and three years' jail on each charge.

 

The TRS website was shut down by its editors last May, after the regulator, the Media Development Authority, suspended their licence to operate the site and ordered them to take it offline.

 

The prosecution is expected to call six witnesses during the trial, including five police officers, while the defence said both Takagi and Yang would testify.

 

Takagi will make her guilty pleain court today, while Yang's trial will proceed on Friday.

 

 

 

[Mockngbrd]

That Jippun bu buay chio one

[Jellandross]

apparently, preying on the emotional weakness of disgruntled Singaporeans is really good money.  

 

i still remember when TRS just started, friends started forwarding me those laughable letters supposedly submitted by concerned Singaporeans. there's finally a crusader for truth, a voice for the ordinary Singaporeans, they say. i told them you guys are suckers reading their trash while they are sniggering at how easily manipulated Singaporeans are and laughing their way to the bank. needless to say, my opinions were not well-received.

 

fast-forward to today, i'm glad my "conspiracy theory" has turned out to be true.

 

but sadly, the same group of loyal readers must now have migrated over to her new ASS site reading the same old trash. of course, it's merely my new conspiracy theory that ASS is setup by the same sick bit*h, until proven to be true, hopefully one day in the near future.

 

 

http://mothership.sg/2016/03/the-real-singapore-made-au474000-in-google-ad-revenue-in-17-months-from-dec-2013-to-april-2015/

 

 

The Real Singapore made AU$474,000 in Google ad revenue in 17 months from Dec. 2013 to April 2015

March 8, 2016

 

Court documents obtained on March 8, 2016, showed that the now-defunct The Real Singapore (TRS) website was ascertained, in the course of investigations against TRS, to have raked in close to half a million dollars in the span of one and a half years.

According to advertising material produced by Takagi herself, the vast majority of visitors to the TRS website – over 95% of all visitors – were from Singapore.

 

More popular than mainstream news sites

 

Takagi had relied on information obtained from a web analytics company, which stated that the TRS website was, at one point, ranked as the 35th most popular website amongst Internet users in Singapore.

 

It was more popular than the websites of The Straits Times (ranked 36th), Channel NewsAsia (ranked 41st), Stomp(ranked 58th), and Today Online (ranked 100th).

 

As at Feb. 17, 2015, the TRS website had more than 140,000 unique visitors per day and almost 2.6 million unique visitors per month. As at 17 February 2015, the TRS website had in excess of 360,000 daily pageviews and almost 13 million monthly pageviews.

 

Takagi had prepared advertising presentation

In the course of investigations, a presentation entitled, “Advertising with TheRealSingapore.com”, which was prepared by Takagi sometime in 2013, was also recovered.

 

In this presentation, Takagi highlights key site statistics for the TRS website and specifically highlights numerous options for advertisement placement on the TRS website, together with the cost associated for each option.

 

In addition, in the presentation, Takagi offered to work together with advertisers to provide advertorials, for publication as articles, during peak hours on the TRS website.

 

 

 

 

Edited March 8, 2016 by Jellandross

[Darryn]

apparently, preying on the emotional weakness of disgruntled Singaporeans is really good money.

 

i still remember when TRS just started, friends started forwarding me those laughable letters supposedly submitted by concerned Singaporeans. there's finally a crusader for truth, a voice for the ordinary Singaporeans, they say. i told them you guys are suckers reading their trash while they are sniggering at how easily manipulated Singaporeans are and laughing their way to the bank. needless to say, my opinions were not well-received.

 

fast-forward to today, i'm glad my "conspiracy theory" has turned out to be true.

 

but sadly, the same group of loyal readers must now have migrated over to her new ASS site reading the same old trash. of course, it's merely my new conspiracy theory that ASS is setup by the same sick bit*h, until proven to be true, hopefully one day in the near future.

Sadly the way was paved by Stomp....and part of the blame rests at their door

[Pocus]

Sadly the way was paved by Stomp....and part of the blame rests at their door

 

To be fair, when STOMP came out in 2006. It was revolutionary idea. The content was interest and really fresh especially truthful since it's citizen journalism. I remember talking about it with my colleagues and spending some time following it.

 

Then along the way it when downhill, moderation is non-existence and by 2008 it's mostly turd...

[Jellandross]

Sadly the way was paved by Stomp....and part of the blame rests at their door

Yep... Stomp works on the same principal of providing an avenue for ego masturbation.

Edited March 8, 2016 by Jellandross