In today’s edition of the Malay Mail:
BLOG-BUSTER
Blogger to pull plug on culprit
Halim Said
Kuala Lumpur, Sept 16:
A blogger, angered by a seditious message on his weblog, intends to lodge a police report today against the sender.Peter Tan, who owns petertan.com/blog, said he will provide the Internet protocol (IP) address of the sender, nicknamed ‘good man’ to the police.
Tan, who started his blog two years ago, said the abusive message containing racial slurs was posted at 7.16pm last Sunday.
Tan, 39, from Penang, said he was puzzled when he saw the message, days after it was posted, as he was away attending a seminar for the disabled between Sept 10 and 14.
“As I had no access to the Net during the seminar, I could not screen the messages coming into the blog,” said Tan, a paraplegic.
Tan admitted that he had received several malicious messages on the blog last month but had deleted them.
“I’m keeping this one (message) for the authorities. This has gone too far and I want the person who did it to be held accountable.”
He said if this is allowed to go unchecked, it will give a negative impression of bloggers.
“Several bloggers also received such messages. We would just delete them.”
He said although the message was sent anonymously, bloggers should be responsible.
“Although my blog stresses the freedom of expression, each sender must be responsible for what they write.”
The blog, petertan.com/blog covers Tan’s life, disability issues and religious matters.
He said he will not be able to stop such messages but will constantly check and clear his blog of racist messages.
In the first case of its kind in Singapore, two men were charged in a district court on Sept 12 with making racist comments on the Internet. (see accompanying story)
They faced charges under the Sedition Act, which has been in place since 1948. Though the Act was amended in 1972 and 1985, this is the first time it has ever been used against individuals.
Offences under the Act carry a maximum jail term of three years and a S$5,000 (RM12,000) fine.
The online version is here.
I have not read the printed version of the Malay Mail yet. I know Jeff Ooi was interviewed. His entry is here. Apparently other bloggers were interviewed regarding this matter too. As an emerging force in society, bloggers should be united in promoting social responsibility on the Internet to stamp out such misuse. As Jeff puts it simply: What is illegal offline is also illegal online.
