Malaysia Wants To Filter The Internet, But Swears It Won't Be Used To Stop Political Dissent
from the yeah,-sure... dept
Malaysia’s government has had something of a love-hate affair with citizens and opposing politicians using blogs and other social media to protest the government — and has even sent opposition bloggers they don’t like to jail. So, you can imagine the concern when the government announced plans to install widespread internet filters modeled on China’s fault “Green Dam” software. Not surprisingly, the government officials back the plan insist it won’t be used against political targets, but just obscene material. Opponents find that hard to believe. Even if (and it’s a big “if”) that’s the intent of the government, having it be so easy to “accidentally” start blocking opposition sites is probably too tempting for many.
Comments on “Malaysia Wants To Filter The Internet, But Swears It Won't Be Used To Stop Political Dissent”
Malaysian Politics
I spent about a week in Malaysia around the time of the blogger-jailing controversy, half of that time was spent attending a technology conference. After the conference I met up with a friend who works in the KL newspaper industry.
Most Malaysian citizens I spoke with in late 2009 didn’t feel that the government currently had too heavy of a hand in terms of controlling free speech, but were concerned that it wouldn’t take much provocation for the government to start a crackdown on the Internet and bloggers. I got the impression people felt it was the government’s duty to control “sin”, and felt that giving up some freedom of speech was worth the cost if it could control the harm of the sex trade and pornographic material.
Re: Malaysian Politics
Malaysia cannot muster the level of Government organization that the Singaporeans, or even the Chinese, can manage. If the Malaysians tried to do a crackdown, given the way the Internet works, it would leak like a sieve.
Backing Off?
The Register is reporting (last para) that the Government is now backing off after protests.
Amazing—democracy actually works, after all. 🙂
Internet Filters
Internet
filters are used to prevent people from surfing where the administrator does
not want them to go.
For example, they may install a filter at work to prevent "Cyberloafing".
Or a parent may want to install and internet filter in order to keep their kids
focused on homework instead of surfing the web. Also, filters are used to block
porn