Politicians need to be careful of traps in Forums

Recently, some of Workers' Party Singapore (WPS) members' netiquette got into the limelight. This quickly puts into question whether it is suitable for politicians to be forumers and the absence of safeguards in forums.

Forums (or the Net at wide) allow anonymous characters to post messages. Any Netizen may also post messages on the account of other people, hidden behind anonymity. Hence, any chap can proclaim himself to be a politician and post nasty remarks, leaving a bad impression, if not name, of the real politican.

Forums are useful channels by which politicans can relate to his supporters or channels for them to spread their ideology and garner more support. Opposition politicians can even debate against policies drafted out by the ruling party in the government with netizens. The debates in the forums make the argument clearer and more people will be able to understand the whole picture.

However, in a forum, every individual member is equal in the sense that each can post, view, vote, argue and debate on every topic like any other members. Hence, members can ardently argue against a politician outright and question him. An experienced politician may be able to bring across his point effectively, while a less experienced politician may not. By giving answers and suggestions that contradict one's ideology, one will quickly be vulnerable to more attacks and in the end, lose support among other forum members.

I believe that only experienced politician or politicians that are political savvy and have deep sense of their own ideology should attempt to participate in forums, and will benefit from their exposure. However, every word and every response is crucial to the politician's overall image. Self-constraint must be observed.