SINGAPORE Law and Practice Contributed by: Lim Chong Kin, Drew & Napier LLC
trade mark in relation to the video game (Section 26 of the TMA). In 2023, IPOS published a Circu - lar clarifying its practice on the classification of NFTs and metaverse-related goods and services in an application for registration of a trade mark. 10. Social Media 10.1 Laws and Regulations for Social Media Online Safety Act The Online Safety Act introduced new provisions to the BA to regulate OCS accessible by Singa - pore end users. Currently, social media services are the only regulated OCS. OCS are an elec - tronic services (or parts of an electronic service) that have the characteristics of a social media service, which may be provided in or from Sin - gapore, or from outside Singapore. OCS enable end users to access or communicate content on the internet, or to deliver content to end users. Under the amended BA, OCS with significant reach and impact in Singapore may be desig - nated as Regulated Online Communication Ser - vices. The providers of such Regulated Online Communication Services have the duty to take all reasonably practicable steps to comply with the applicable Codes of Practice, to implement measures to mitigate the risks of danger to Sin - gapore users from exposure to harmful content and to provide accountability to their users on such measures. On 18 July 2023, the Code of Practice for Online Safety (Online Safety Code) took effect. It seeks to minimise Singapore users’ exposure to harmful content, with additional protection for children, by requiring designated social media services to put systems and processes in place to curb the spread of harmful content on their
services, among other measures. The categories of harmful content covered by the Online Safety Code are: • sexual content; • violent content; • suicide and self-harm content; • cyberbullying content; • content endangering public health; and • content facilitating vice and organised crime. Online Criminal Harms Act In light of the proliferation of scams and mali - cious cyber-activities, the Online Criminal Harms Act 2023 (OCHA) was passed in Parliament on 5 July 2023 to counter online criminal activity and protect against online harms. In particular, the OCHA allows directions to be issued to online service providers, other entities or individu - als, when there is reasonable suspicion that an online activity is in furtherance of the commis - sion of specified criminal offences. Designated OCS providers will have to comply with the requirements under the Code of Prac - tice for Online Communication Services (Online Communication Code), which defines “online communication service” as any online service that enables users to access or communicate information with other users by means of the internet. Under the Online Communication Code, des - ignated providers of OCS must implement appropriate systems, processes or measures to achieve the following objectives: • quick disruption of malicious accounts and activities; • deployment of safeguards to prevent propa - gation of malicious activities; and • accountability.
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