FROM ‘OBSCENE’ MEDIASCAPES TO TOXIC SHADOW COMMUNITIES: THE GHETTOIZATION OF SAMMY BOY FORUM AND ITS IMPLICATIONS ON VULNERABLE COMMUNITY

Abstract

This thesis provides a framework to study the development and devolution of ‘deviant’ online media sites like SammyBoyForum (SBF) which were created by non-state actors to circumvent state censorship. Such a framework is crucial as it helps to explain how online criminogenic sites continue to exist on the Internet despite the government’s efforts to clamp down on them. Considering the growing notoriety of SBF in recent years under the scrutiny of local news media, this thesis conducts a non-participant observation of the forum as well as its subsidiary Telegram supergroups and traces its history – from a simple recommendations list of local brothels and massage parlors to an online forum promoting freedom of speech and ‘deviant’ expression, and finally to a Telegram supergroup encouraging the non-consensual creation, distribution, and access of intimate images featuring women and children. Using the aforementioned framework, this thesis makes three arguments. Firstly, the Singapore government’s overregulation of the Internet compelled citizens to retreat into the shadowscape – an alternative online space developed to accommodate the many deviant opinions and interests that were driven ‘underground’ by the state. Secondly, when these deviant perspectives are allowed to fester in the SBF shadowscape, it would result in the victimization of vulnerable communities – specifically women and children. Finally, the critical process which led to SBF’s devolution was Toxic Ghettoization, a concept introduced in this thesis to explain the normalization of toxic behavior in SBF.