Date and time: 29th November 2006, 2:30 - 3:30 p.m.

Venue: School Hall (SMCC)

The Inter-house Current Affairs Forum was held to enhance our students’ understanding on social issues and to give them an opportunity to express their views openly. By taking stances that represented different interest groups in society, the four houses presented their views towards the issue “Whether or not the Government should enact laws to monitor free speech online”, as suggested by some after the prosecution of the man posting online message of “Flash mop rape”. Blue House represented the Government; Red House represented network users; White House represented the business sector and Yellow House represented the educational field.

Speakers of all four houses tried their very best to convince the adjudicators and the audience about the adverse impacts of laws which restrict speech freedom online. It was proved to be a thrilling activity, with the four houses substantiating their standpoint with reasons and examples. As a result, the audience got the chance to explore the topic through different perspectives. For example, the Educational Field thought that it was unwise to enact laws as people should be educated instead of being forced to abide by laws. The business field, sharing the similar beliefs, thought that laws would definitely hold people back from surfing online, which might bring negative impacts on their online advertisements.

As a student, I do think the programme gave me much more information and ideas than those we have in the news reports or newspapers. As the speakers had prepared so well, they came up with some focal questions like whether it is necessary to monitor online speeches and its possible impacts on business advertisements. The audience paid great attention to the speakers, especially during the exciting Q & A section in which floor speakers raised questions to which the speakers responded, given only very limited preparation time! This pushed the whole atmosphere to a climax and the hall was extremely quiet, as everyone was paying full attention to find out how intelligently those questions were handled.

Finally, Blue house, representing the Government, won as they thoroughly but precisely discussed the whole issue, addressing the major difficulties the society would face if such laws were enacted. Although the other three houses lost, their performances were highly complimented upon by the adjudicators for their quick responses and critical analysis on the issue. Most students watching the forum also thought that the programme succeeded in presenting to the audience different voices from various groups in society, adding that the experience would help them practise divergent thinking in the future when they come across other social issues.

Written by Joyce Chin (F.4E)