Update 2: TODAY newspaper mentions the fracas but omits Rockson's name. So now he is He Who Shall Not Be Named, is it?
Update 1: AsiaOne and Shin Min reports "YPAP leader regrets behaviour in vulgarity war"
From the article: "The two then exchanged remarks, taunting and calling each other names."
Not much of an "exchange", if you ask me. I counted only FOUR tweets from Rockson Tan in the entire "exchange", and only TWO of those contained vulgarity. And NONE of his tweets even technically counted as responses.
In contrast, er… the "tirade of words" kinda came from pretty much one person.
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Wow, I step away from blogging for a day or two and a Twitter war erupts online.
It seems (very) foul-mouthed and (very) infrequent blogger, Rockson Tan (him of the infamous TT Durai rant in 1995) tweeted about Nuffnang boss, Mr Cheo Ming Shen a.k.a. @bossning, with regards to his comparison of Lee Kuan Yew as the Nelson Mandela of Singaporeans.
In his tweet, @rocksontan used a rather rude phrase to describe Ming:
"Cheo Ming Shen say LKY is equivalent of Nelson Mandela to Singaporeans?!! Who is this c******kia? http://twitpic.com/3qr7mm"
And it resulted in a flurry of angry tweets from the offended party:
(link to download bigger screenshot of the tweets)
I have met Ming before, and he struck me as a nice fellow, so this must have happened at the heat of the moment.
The Temasek Review picked up on the Mandela story (Ming was one of the earliest to buy the autographed copy of Lee Kuan Yew's Hard Truths book, for $10,000, which goes to charity) and also on the exchange of vulgarities on Twitter.
The Online Citizen (TOC) also picked up on the story on their Facebook page:
"For the record, rocksontan went personal on me and called me a “c******kia”, now I dunno about you guys, but if somebody gets personal with me, I get personal back with them." Mr Cheo Ming Shen - Young PAP Chairperson for Toa Payoh East
TOC also linked to Rockson's blog post.
Yes, Rockson actually wrote a blog post (caution: vulgar language), something that happens like once a year:
Nab**! I didn't know this c******kia is also Young PAP Chairman of Toa Payoh East! I only know he was boss of Muffnang, a internet company that sell blogger advertisement and internet banner to big company that dunno people don't click or look at banner anymore (at first I even thought it was sell c****** one).F*** man, if I know he is YPAP, I won't anyhow call him c******kia on my Twitter lor.
PAP people is very powerful one, even the Young one. They can call their lawyer sue you, call ISD come and catch you, and even cassette you as politics association. (read the rest here)
Wow, what a fracas. There is even 13 pages of discussion at HWZ about this.
Interestingly, a twitter account called @PAPLightning (probably a parody account) also jumped into the fray:
We need to encourage more people like #cheomingshen so they have the courage to speak their mind, no matter how stupid others think they are
Talk about rubbing it in.
