Cyber Hostility – How Far is Too Far?

Synopsis of the Talk

Have you ever been a victim of cyber hostility? Technological advancements, such as the advent of TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat and Facebook, have changed the way we lead our lives and have also changed the way bullying has occurred. These online platforms allow perpetrators to hide behind a mask of anonymity and yet provide them with a viral means to spread fake news, harass, stalk and even sexually intimidate their victims. In this talk, find out how to recognise acts of cyber bullying, the current legal remedies available and how to be an effective first responder. Let’s do our part to make the internet a safer place!

Speaker's Biodata

Mr Ben Chester Cheong is a Singaporean legal academic and lawyer with 10 years’ experience. He is a Tripos Supervisor at Cambridge University since 2024, teaching both company law and environmental law. He is a Visiting Fellow in Law at University of Reading, Associate Academic Fellow at NUS Asia-Pacific Centre for Environmental Law (APCEL), and Centre Researcher at the Cambridge Centre for Environment, Energy and Natural Resource Governance (C-EENRG). He is a permanent Law Lecturer and the inaugural MOE-START Overseas PhD Scholar at SUSS. Ben graduated with a master’s degree in law from Cambridge Faculty of Law in June 2015. He ranked 3rd out of 664 candidates in the 2016 Singapore Bar Examinations (Part B) and is the highest performing Cambridge graduate in that year’s Bar Examinations. He has published extensively, and his work has been cited over 330 times (on Google Scholar). As of 2025, he has approximately 100 publications output. His papers have appeared in prestigious international journals published by Oxford and Cambridge University Presses. He received the SUSS Outstanding Teaching Award in 2022 and the Excellence in Teaching Award in 2021.

From 2018 to 2023, Ben served as course convener for Law of Business Organisations at SUSS. He has also lectured in Contract Law, Legal Methods & Singapore Legal System, Mediation Advocacy, and Equity & Trusts, and taught Advanced Corporate Practice at Part B. He is an invited peer reviewer for over a dozen journals. Ben previously served as an international finance lawyer at American law firm Baker McKenzie and a Vice-Chairman at Pro Bono SG Community Legal Clinics

Ms Tricia Ho is a Lecturer of Law at the Singapore University of Social Sciences. She is a course lecturer for the Family Law and Family Justice Courts modules 1 and 2. She is also the Principal Investigators in a funded applied research project involving changing attitudes towards sexual misconduct in Singapore. Tricia holds an LLB from the Singapore Management University, an LLM from UC Berkeley and is admitted to practice law in Singapore.