Mediaboss Marketing

PETALING JAYA (June 4, 2012): The laws of the land must prevail over the Internet as promises of no online censorship was not meant to prejudice existing legislation, said Information, Communications and Culture minister Datuk Seri Dr Rais Yatim.

He was responding to former prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad's call for the government to reconsider the "absolute (Internet) freedom" as provided for under the Communication and Multimedia Act 1998, as well as the Bill of Guarantees of the Multimedia Super Corridor.

"When I said there should be no censorship of the Internet, I really did not realise the power of the Internet. The power to create problems and agitate people.

"Before (pornographic) magazines and all that could be banned from coming into our country, now it (the Internet) is so porous that we cannot prevent all this filth from coming into our country," Mahathir reportedly said in an interview with New Sunday Times.

As such, Rais said that the former premier's call for tightening regulations on online contents is timely because if left unchecked, the country may turn into a free for all domain.

"A segment of our society has now become culpable of various ills through the Internet: Internet gambling, child pornography, illicit adverts, false reporting, cheating, privacy intrusions and many more," he said stressing that Internet freedom does not equate to flouting the laws.

On the same note, Malaysian Communication and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) chairman Datuk Mohamed Sharil Tarmizi argued that what constitutes as an offence offline, should also be made illegal online.

"People need to distinguish between censoring (the Internet) and enforcing laws of the land," he said, citing the controversial decision to block 10 file-sharing websites found to have contravened the Copyright Act 1987 as an example.

"If stealing is illegal offline, than downloading of pirated contents is also an offence," he added.

Mohamed Sharil also pointed out that the Communications and Multimedia Content Forum, since its inception in 2001, has been put in-charge of overseeing the implementation of a self-regulatory content code which includes "model procedures for dealing with offensive and indecent content."

More here:
INTERNET CENSORSHIP: Rais echoes Dr M's call