Registering and Censoring Bloggers?
The ludicrous Malaysian government strikes again, this time with a proposal to register Malaysian bloggers, purportedly for the sake of national security. This time, the moron is Deputy Energy, Water and Communications Minister Datuk Shaziman Abu Mansor, who has mooted the idea in Parliament.
Fortunately, I will be exempt from his proposal, which states that only "locally hosted websites" will be subject to registration. This massive loophole in itself shows how ridiculous and ineffective this idea is. How many bloggers host their websites locally in the first place? And how many will if this proposal is implemented?
Moving your website to a foreign server is really simple. The worst that could happen is that Malaysians might take an extra second or two longer to access the website, but aside from that, there's no material difference. If this regulation were to be enacted, there would be a real difference — no need to register yourself with the government.
There are only two imaginable reasons for the government coming up with such a stupid idea. Either the government is seeking to take a symbolic but essentially meaningless action to make it seem like it's doing something about bloggers, or it's profoundly ignorant of the realities of the internet.
I'm leaning in favour of the latter explanation. The only people who seem to care about bloggers are those in the government itself, so there's no reason for them to take a meaningless action. This can only mean that they want to take what they think is a meaningful step, but they are so clueless about the internet that they don't know how easy it is to relocate websites overseas.
Even if the government was serious, it couldn't really enforce this registration law. How is it going to go to the trouble of identifying locally-hosted websites, and then tracking down their authors? They would have to selectively enforce the law, because it's simply impractical to hunt down every locally-hosted blog.
The Deputy Minister said something about websites with the .my top-level domain suffix, but this is no indicator of hosting status. There are .com sites hosted in Malaysia, and .com.my sites hosted overseas. The domain name does not indicate the location of the webhost. The government will have to first determine what blogs are written by Malaysians, and then painfully sift through them to find the few that are actually hosted in Malaysia.
If this policy goes into practice at all, I imagine what will happen is that the government will just look into those blogs that they don't like, and see if they are hosted locally. If they are, then they will crack down on them through this registration procedure. Only selective enforcement of the law would be practical, which I guess suits a government that favours the rule of convenience over the rule of law.
Anyhow, this proposal to begin regulating the internet is worrying. The government has given its promise to protect freedom of speech in cyberspace. This seems to clash directly with the Deputy Minister's recent proposal.
In the first place, regulating cyberspace is quite difficult. The vagaries of the internet don't lend themselves well to enforcement of criminal law, resulting often in selective enforcement. Cyberspace seems better suited for civil law, where those harmed by a specific website can sue its authors.
The existing defamation laws already apply to the internet. There doesn't seem to be a good reason to criminalise the act of exercising freedom of speech on the internet. If anyone is spreading lies about the government, the aggrieved party or parties can always sue for libel. And if someone is actively seeking to subvert the country, surely there are criminal laws against plotting an overthrow of the rule of law. Where's the need for further criminal laws?
This proposal to register bloggers reeks of idiocy and clearly hasn't been thought out well. If it is implemented at all, it will probably go down in the history books as another one of those poorly dreamed up ideas to curtail the proper exercise of free speech. And, of course, also as an entry in the Malaysia Book of Records for most silly and unimplementable idea. (Though I suspect there's a lot of competition in this category.)
(Infernal Ramblings is a Malaysian website focusing on current events and sociopolitical issues. Its articles run the gamut from economics to society to education.
Infernal Ramblings is run by John Lee. For more, see the About section. If you have any questions or comments, do drop him a line.
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kittykat46
Member Posts: 2 IP Logged | Posted at 2:59:28 am Jan 25, 2007
John, I found your site through another excellent blog – Freelunch2020 – and I must say I’m impressed with your forum, definitely one of the best thinking sites on Malaysian affairs. Freedom of speech in Malaysia has to be taken in a broader context than blogosphere, because you need to reach a wider audience to get make a difference. The number of people who access the Internet is still a minority, and an even smaller proportion of people read blogs (e.g. I’m quite Tech-savvy, but I didn’t have a blogger ID until 3 months ago). Your average Ali or Ah Beng doesn't read blogs, and you have to reach to them to make a difference in the next elections. In such broader terms, freedom of speech is still very limited. I’m not so concerned about the Sedition Act, even though it imposes heavy penalties. It’s a “normal” piece of criminal legislation, which is defendable in court, and it can be argued that those who have been charged under the Act have usually said something out of line or nearly so. ISA is a lot scarier, because it is off limits to judicial review, but they don’t usually go after little tikus. What’s a lot more restrictive are non-criminal threats to anyone or any organization that speaks up. Newspapers may have their licenses not renewed or suspended. The livelihood of a lot of innocent employees could be jeopardized. So newspapers stay clear of any open criticism of government policy. In any case, virtually all the national papers are closely connected to the ruling party or individuals close to the government. Rocky and Screenshots have been openly sued in court, which in a way is actually refreshing. Most of the actions carried out against people who speak up are more underhand. People have been fired from their jobs, customers pressured to go elsewhere. If you are a person of independent means, like Raja Petra, you probably don’t care, but most folks have to hold a job or run a business to make a living. This is a real threat, which will silence ordinary people who have a family and kids to bring up. There is no real freedom of speech unless there is freedom from fear to speak up. Take my case – I don’t think my posting contains anything illegal, but no mainstream newspaper will dare publish such a letter, and so few people will get to read it. I don’t use my real name on the Internet and the reason is simple. I work at a senior level in the private sector, my name’s appeared in the business pages before. It would not be fair for the organization I work with to be exposed to any pressure from the government, which is one of their customers. |
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johnleemk
Infernally Rambling Thoughtless Mind Head Administrator Posts: 949 IP Logged | Posted at 11:32:55 am Jan 25, 2007
I agree with everything you have said. The point I was trying to make was that those who can and want to blog about Malaysian affairs, but don't because they fear legal retaliation, are overreacting. There is at least freedom of speech in the blogosphere. The commentary I read in the case I referred to was quite tepid compared to the typical discussion in most Malaysian political blogs, but the commentors seemed quite afraid of saying what they said. I was arguing that this is a bit of an irrational response, since in reality they almost certainly won't get picked on by the government - even the most racist commentors on Malaysia Today don't get called in for police questioning. Your point about the necessity of anonymity is well-taken, but that further bolsters my argument that there is greater freedom of speech on the internet - because, as that famous joke went, on the internet, nobody knows you're a dog. Incidentally, you've just made me recall that thanks to the existence of this site, I've probably made myself significantly more unattractive in the Malaysian employment market once I graduate. Oh, well. It's not going to be my loss if I don't return, although I will miss the place. |
