PEACE-LOVING Singaporeans got a small jolt from a viral SMS making the rounds last week.

It asked for people to gather at Speakers' Corner in support of a potentially sensitive issue concerning race and language.

Work of an attention-seeker? Needless to say, some were jumpy.

Now what if a bunch of trouble-makers put up giant posters on a major street corner to agitate over an issue that can inflame a segment of the community?

Or if they place an advertisement in the media? Or if they get the mass media to write about their plan of action and cause?

Here's the danger: One crank on a soapbox at Speakers' Corner might well be ignored. But if that voice is amplified in other ways in the mass media, then it can become a disruptive influence.

As one critic pointed out, 'a whisper at one end of the village can end up as a roar at the other'.

Of course, NParks or the police can act and deny a permit for the person to speak out of fear that public order might be compromised.

But this itself can become the subject of news when the thwarted speaker complains to the local and foreign media.

He or she would then be getting a far bigger platform for half-cocked or even dangerous views.

If he defiantly invites others to go to the Corner for what would then be an illegal assembly, the ruckus will then lead to 'photo opportunities' for anyone out to put Singapore in a bad light.

Yes, it's good to liberalise rules to allow public demonstrations at Hong Lim Park. But we need a wider understanding of how the game should be played - not just the official rules, but the spirit of the game.

In my view, there is value in having some space, however small, for people to vent their feelings on any issue close to their hearts.

To do mass texting and to 'play the media game' is taking things to a different plane. That's when free speech must be tempered by social responsibility.

If someone wants a larger audience, he can turn to the opinion pages of newspapers or organise a forum. Then the rules of the game will change, as reasoned argument will then be required to make a case.

But you can't have it both ways surely.

You can't shoot off your mouth in the Corner and then ask for it to be amplified in the same terms by the mass media.

That's why I would argue that, for Speakers' Corner to be given more freedom, the rest of us must agree on one basic ground rule: What starts in the Corner must remain in the Corner.

This article first appeared in The New Paper on Sep 25, 2008.