Singapore government bans extramarital dating website

Singapore's Media Development Authority (MDA) said on Friday that it has banned the extra- marital dating website Ashley Madison. The MDA said the government adopts a pragmatic and light-touch approach to regulating Internet content. However, it still blocks "a limited number of sites as a symbolic statement of the types of content which the community is opposed to." It said the Ashley Madison website "aggressively promotes and facilitates extramarital affairs and has declared that it will specifically target Singaporeans." "It is against the public interest to allow Ashley Madison to promote its website in flagrant disregard of our family values and public morality," it said in a statement, adding that the government will "not allow Ashley Madison to operate in Singapore and have worked with the Internet Service Providers to block access to the site." Ashley Madison is based in Canada with more than 21 million users worldwide. It goes by the slogan "Life is short. Have an affair." A local newspaper had reported that the founder of the website intended to fly into Singapore to launch the Singapore site in the week of November 17. In response, a Facebook page in the name of "Block Ashley Madison-Singapore," got more than 26,000 "likes" until now. Singapore's Minister for Social and Family Development Chan Chun Sing also expressed his support for Singaporeans' opposition to the website. "Promoting infidelity undermines trust and commitment between a husband and wife, which are core to marriage," he said in a Facebook post, adding that he is heartened by the responses of many Singaporeans who also spoke up against such website. The website has already expanded to other Asian countries and territories such as Japan and, recently, China's Hong Kong.