Singapore's Foreign Miniter, George Yeo is on Facebook.

If you are wondering whether the man behind the profile is the true McCoy, the answer is yes.

When contacted by The Sunday Times, Mr Yeo told the newspaper that he created his Facebook profile in June this year, and logs in nearly every day and replies to messages himself.

Besides Mr Yeo, there are at least eight other Singaporean politicians who maintain profile pages on the popular social networking site, The Sunday Times Reported.

They include Minister for Community Developement, Youth and Sports Vivian Balakrishnan, Senior Parliamentary Secretary for COmmunity Development Youth and Sports Teo Ser Luck, and Members of Parliament Zaqy Mohamed, Lim Wee Kiak and Penny Low.

At least three of the seven MPs that The Sunday Times spoke to felt that social networking sites like Facebook can be tapped to rally people, especially around social events or causes.

Unlike serious blogsites such as the PAP's P65 site, social networking avenues like Facebook offers a more hip image. Users interact with a variety of features including photo-sharing, leaving drawings for friends, and even 'poke' one another with electronic alerts.

Of the seven MPs interviewed by The Sunday Times, though, only Mr Yeo and Mr Zaqy have kept their profiles 'open'. The others preferred to keep their profiles private - out of view of the public unless authorisation is given.

However, a Sunday Times check showed that most of the MPs approved 'friend requets' instantly.

MP for Hong Kah GRC Mr Zaqy told The Sunday Times, "I'm not campaigning anything on Facebook. There are other mass platforms like political web sites for that.

"Facebook has revived my long-lost social network overnight, and the last thing I want to do is lose friends by politicising everything."

He now has 430 friends, mostly colleagues and ex-schoolmates, the English newspaper reported.

For the full story, visit straitstimes.com