Former Premier once guaranteed Malaysia could never censor online content
by The Malaysian Insider, Published TODAY, 4 Jun 2012
KUALA LUMPUR - The government should rethink allowing absolute freedom on the Internet, Dr Mahathir Mohamad has said, in a reversal of his stand during his term as Prime Minister, when he guaranteed that Malaysia would never censor online content.
He told The New Sunday Times in an interview published yesterday that countries should enforce some form of regulatory control to block "filth" and punish those who corrupt the minds of Internet users.
"When I said there should be no censorship of the Internet, I really did not realise the power of the Internet, the power to undermine moral values, the power to create problems and agitate people. Now it is so porous that we cannot prevent all this filth from coming into our country," Dr Mahathir, an avid blogger, was reported as saying.
Dr Mahathir, who was Premier for 22 years until 2003, had promised that Malaysia would never censor the Internet in any way as part of a pledge to draw investors to develop the Multimedia Super Corridor.
He had repeated this stand at the Third Annual Malaysian Student Leaders Summit in August last year, although he then suggested disciplinary action on some aspects of Net abuse.
"For example, there is too much violence coming through on the Internet. That, I think, we have a right to ban, but as far as political thinking, if you are not instigating violence and things like that, I think the Internet should not be censored in any way," Bernama had reported him as saying.
Prime Minister Najib Razak voiced similar sentiments last year and vowed his administration would not resort to Internet censorship but will instead engage further with Malaysians, acknowledging that people now use social networking sites to express outrage.
"Malaysians have to thank Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad for this. When he was the Prime Minister, and Malaysia was developing our Multimedia Super Corridor, Tun made the promise to the world that Malaysia would never censor the Internet. My government is fully committed to that wisdom - we intend to keep his word," Mr Najib said.
Growing Internet access and the ability of the opposition to disseminate information online has been cited as one of the factors for the ruling coalition's worst electoral result in the 2008 elections.
Since then, the ruling coalition has been working to narrow the gap, including training "cyber troopers" and providing social media training to its members.
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