Firstly we cannot confirm the ‘Good Man’ is even Malaysian (though likely he is).

Secondly, GM could easily have posted his comments from a public access facility (library, cybercafe).

Thirdly, malicious racist comments is a criminal offense under existing laws, and not necessarily just the cyberlaws.

Fourthly, Malaysia has a Content Code that provides guidelines of what is permissible content to be placed online (originating from Malaysia).

Fifthly, the Malaysian government, up to this day, stands committed that there will be no Internet censorship, backed by the MSC Bill of Guarantee to some extent.

As such, the Malaysian government supports self-regulation by all relevant parties, including individuals, to strike a delicate balance between civil liberty à la freedom of speech and acceptable social conduct, be it online or offline.

The postings of GM across Malaysian blogs and other websites are likely to have breached the law. Thus, GM bears the legal consequences. As for bloggers, I do not see any legal implications in this matter.

With regards to comments provided by another party on our blogs, we are but Innocent Carriers, with responsibility only to remove undesirable comments in a timely manner. In fact adherence to the Content Code provides a further legal defense to bloggers.

I do not see the difficulty in clicking a ‘delete’ button on such comments. That is about all there is to it, really.

The good thing is that there are people in our country who would like to push for the modernization of laws that can protect bloggers. The bad thing is that not many people in our country think it’s important in the first place and think that this matter of reporting to the police shouldn’t be a big deal at all.

We don’t need hate speech laws because it turns into government taking away freedom of speech.

And both are equally bad.