Coverage spread: 2 sources — 2 international
Lean ratings via AllSides / Media Bias-Fact-Check. How this works.
A 19-year-old French student in Singapore, Didier Gaspard Owen Maximilien, has been fined S$600 (about €400/$458) after pleading guilty to a single count of public nuisance for licking a drinking straw from an orange juice vending machine and putting it back into the dispenser. The incident occurred on March 12 at an iJooz machine in Goldhill Centre, an affluent Singapore neighborhood, reportedly after Maximilien had finished a boxing workout. He filmed himself licking the straw and posted the clip to Instagram with the caption “city is not safe.” The video was reposted to a community page, went viral, and was picked up by local news outlets after a company employee spotted the footage and alerted police.
Maximilien, who studies at Singapore’s ESSEC Business School, avoided jail time, though both his defense and the prosecution reportedly sought a fine rather than imprisonment. Public nuisance convictions in Singapore can carry penalties of up to S$2,000, three months in jail, or both, meaning Maximilien could have faced harsher punishment. His lawyer told the court, as quoted by The Straits Times, that Maximilien is genuinely remorseful and now recognizes that what seemed like a playful stunt has proven far more serious than he anticipated. It remains unclear whether Singaporean immigration authorities will take further action against his student pass, which would affect his ability to remain in the country.
The Vending Machine and Its Costs
The machine involved belongs to iJooz, a company whose freshly squeezed orange juice vending machines — selling cups for S$2 each — are common fixtures in Singapore’s shopping districts, train stations, and residential blocks. After the prank surfaced, iJooz replaced all 500 straws in the affected dispenser as a precaution. While the direct financial cost of the discarded straws was minimal — estimated at around 5 Singapore dollars, or roughly €3.30, according to court documents cited by Deutsche Welle — the case drew outsized public attention and official response relative to that small sum.
How the Coverage Compares
The BBC and Deutsche Welle both cover the same core facts — the fine, the guilty plea, the viral video, and the straw replacement — but frame the story with slightly different emphases. The BBC leans more into the social media dimension, highlighting the Instagram caption “city is not safe,” the online backlash and disgust the video provoked, and direct quotes from the defense lawyer describing Maximilien’s remorse as relayed by The Straits Times and Channel News Asia. It also specifies the exact date and location of the incident (March 12, Goldhill Centre) and notes that Maximilien had just finished a boxing workout beforehand.
Deutsche Welle situates the episode more within the broader context of Singapore’s reputation for strict laws and social discipline, noting the country’s long-standing restrictions on chewing gum imports as part of anti-littering and anti-vandalism efforts, and its retention of judicial caning for certain serious offenses (while clarifying that caning was never a realistic possibility in this case). Deutsche Welle also emphasizes the striking contrast between the trivial monetary cost of the prank — a few euros’ worth of straws — and the scale of the legal and public response, and it flags the unresolved question of whether Maximilien’s student visa status could be jeopardized, a detail not addressed in the BBC’s account. Both outlets agree that Maximilien could have faced imprisonment but instead received only a monetary penalty, and both note that this outcome followed a request from both prosecution and defense for a fine.
Why It Matters
The case, while centered on a minor and seemingly trivial act, illustrates how Singapore’s tightly enforced public order laws and cultural emphasis on hygiene and cleanliness can turn a viral social media stunt into a formal criminal matter with real legal consequences, including fines and potential immigration repercussions for foreign residents. It also underscores the risks foreign students and expatriates face when personal social media posts intended as jokes attract wider public and official scrutiny in jurisdictions with strict nuisance and public-behavior statutes. The unresolved question over Maximilien’s student pass leaves open the possibility of further consequences beyond the court’s fine, a detail both outlets flag as still pending.
Sources
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