Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said that he was "flame-proof" and that it was important to be thick skinned when facing critics online.
PM Lee was speaking at a dialogue session yesterday evening with over 60 young professionals from a variety of professions as well as students. The dialogue also included Acting Minister for Culture, Community and Youth, Lawrence Wong.
The PM was responding to a question on how he stayed positive on Facebook despite many critics.
He reiterated that it was important to believe in what you are doing: "If you’re doing something which you believe is right, worth doing, then even if there are some naysayers, you must decide whether you’ve got the majority with you or not."
Going on to talk about the critics he said "There will always be naysayers – that’s the reality. If you want to do something for Singapore, for the population, you should not be deterred because there are some nasty postings. When you are in the public eye, you flame me, I’m flame-proof."
He also explained that there are some people in cyberspace who are just out to disagree.
How Thickskinned is PM Lee?
Either PM Lee had found a new way of dealing with online criticisms or he has a warped definition of "flame-proof".
If he was truely thickskinned, would he need to issue lawyer letters to bloggers?
Early this year, PM Lee issued a letter of demand to blogger Alex Au for his post about AIM and before that, in 2012, PM Lee sent a letter of demand to Richard Wan of Temasek Reveiw over a post about Ho Ching's position in Temasek Holdings.
See: http://www.tremeritus.com/2013/01/05/prime-minister-serves-letter-of-demand-on-yawning-bread/
and: http://forums.condosingapore.com/showthread.php?t=12993
It is clear that PM Lee took offence at these two incidents, having paid for a lawyer to send a letter of demand to those responsible. Is this an example of being 'thick-skinned'?
As part of being in politics, it is understood that there will be many wild accusations made. There are no other countries were politicians will serve lawyer letters to citizens over their comments.
It seems the PM is being hypocritical.