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Racism scandal on Malaysian blogs

Racism scandal on Malaysian blogs

A Malaysian blog reader is set to face the long arm of the law for leaving racist comments on Malaysian blogs with a Malaysian blogger set to report the incident to Police.

According to Malaysia’s Sunday Mail, Peter Tan is said to be providing details to police, including the IP address of the sender. The move follows the recent arrest in neighbouring Singapore of two men for sedition for leaving similar comments on blogs.

View Comments (11)
  • We need hate speech laws because of the idiots who don’t have common sense.

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

    And both are equally bad.

  • It’s sad that these problems happens even a modernized country. But, what I want to point out is that the reporters in Malaysia seems to be following the act from their Singaporean counterparts… which is reporting the events in blogosphere.

  • Joe’s right. The modern tendency of punishing everyone for the antics of a few is very sinister. In England we’re about to lose a raft of civil liberties so that the authorities can deal with potential terrorists. “Human Rights” legislation means that this is the only way to get at these people. Surely the old Common Law way with its emphasis on discretion is a much better approach.

  • Unfortunately it can’t be helped in our country. The fact that blogging has literally exploded into the people and the fact that the higher ups have been slow to act on it has left the Malaysian net community much to ourselves.

    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.

  • Hmm, my two cents below.

    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 issue now is racism that exists in Singapore. These men are below 30s, one as young as 17. What does this all mean? Why are they filled with all these hatred? As a Malay Singaporean, I am puzzled. We are always put in a situation where we are the lesser half of the society. Whenever there are racial harmony events taking place to promote awareness, mosques and malay groups/societies are the ones who would be the first in line to support such events. Did we just manage to reach the Malay/Muslims of this country through such events? What’s happening to the National Education program in our schools? Are the teachers really spreading the message at all?

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