Singaporeans have been on the receiving end of shocking revelations involving their political leaders in the past few weeks.
Recently, on the same day that news broke of 2 PAP members – former Speaker of Parliament Tan Chuan Jin and former Member of Parliament Cheng Li Hui – resigning over an affair, a video appearing to show Worker’s Party members Nicole Seah and Leon Perera holding hands has surfaced online.
Subsequently, we came across a screenshot of a Facebook post, allegedly by Seah, being shared on Facebook and Telegram. The post, which appears to be a response to the recent allegations against her, states that news reports of her seeing a married man were untrue and the reports circulating online were inaccurate.
Worker’s Party’s response
On 17 July 2023, the Worker’s Party released a statement that it is aware of a video circulating online that “suggests an inappropriate exchange between two senior Party members”. The Party added that it is looking into the matter and will comment after having all the facts.
Nicole Seah’s alleged response
A search for Seah’s official Facebook account revealed that her last post was on 24 June 2023. Additionally, there are no recent posts addressing the recent video circulating online.
However, we found an article from 2013 that reported that Singapore news sites AsiaOne and Lianhe Wanbao had mistakenly published that Seah was dating a married man at that time by the name of Steven Goh. Subsequently, it was clarified that Goh was actually divorced.
The article detailed that Seah had responded to the false reports through a Facebook post stating that both English and Chinese mainstream media had falsely reported that she was seeing a married man. While Seah was dating Goh, he was divorced and therefore single.
Although the actual Facebook post by Seah is currently unavailable and might have been taken down, screenshots can be found in other articles.
Therefore, while Seah may have authored the Facebook post which has been recently circulated online, it has been taken out of context to appear as a response to the present allegations against her.
Hence, it is false that the screenshot being circulated online is Nicole Seah’s response to the video of her and Leon Perera that has surfaced online.
While social media might provide updates about a developing story from varied sources, thereby reducing the time that one has to spend searching through different sources, there is always a risk that inaccurate information might be circulated. Therefore, it is good practice to verify the information we receive, especially when it might not come from credible sources.
