It all began with a Facebook page, or so it seems.
Yang Kai Heng, co-founder of The Real Singapore, says that he was spurred to create the hate-promoting website after the response to a Facebook page he started – “Petition to Remove Tin Pei Ling as MP”.
The anti-Tin page was created by Yang and his Australian-Japanese wife, Ai Takagi, who’s also the other half of TRS.
Yang and his now-pregnant lover started the page calling for the removal of the PAP MP for MacPherson after GE2011, and it gained 60,000 page likes.
The page apparently hit 30,000 likes in 10 hours.
The popularity of the anti-Tin page led Yang to believe that a website like TRS would be a “useful venue to eventually have a business venture”
Yang is facing seven counts of sedition for allegedly using TRS to “maliciously exploit racial and xenophobic faultlines”.
He has pushed continued to deflect responsibility for TRS, saying his wife managed the website and sourced its content.
TRS is estimated to have earned about S$500,000 in its 2 years of operation.
Yang says during that time, he was merely handling marketing affairs for the website.
He was too busy to take charge of TRS or write any articles because he was busy with schoolwork and running a gaming club.
Yang’s pregnant wife has already been jailed after pleading guilty to sedition charges.
