Article from AsiaMedia:

MALAYSIA: Malaysians hounded by vicious blogging too

Police complaints lodged against readers who post seditious responses to blogs

The Straits Times
Tuesday, September 27, 2005

By Carolyn Hong

Blogger Ameer Zulkifli is used to heated debates on his blog, but one comment left by a reader two weeks ago shocked him with the ugliness of the racist diatribe.

Although reluctant, he felt compelled to lodge a police report against the reader for slandering Malays and cursing the government.

‘It could have created a bucketful of trouble for me,’ said Mr Ameer, a management consultant who blogs on current affairs and politics on his well-read site Brand Malaysia.

Under Malaysian law, a blogger may be liable if he condones inflammatory debate on his website.

Mr Ameer, 34, is not alone as another blogger, Mr Peter Tan, also lodged a police report against the same commentator for leaving a racist opinion on his site on Sept 17.

Police are investigating their reports, which could form the basis for the first Internet sedition case.

As online diaries, blogs are hugely popular in Malaysia but they are also becoming forums to air provocative opinions on topics regarded as too sensitive for public discussion.

Bloggers who focus on current issues often find their sites attracting strong opinions from readers with a tendency towards defamatory, seditious and inflammatory views.

‘Political bloggers tend to have this kind of problem. It is the dark side of the Internet,’ said one of Malaysia’s most widely read Web writers, Mr Jeff Ooi, who has had his own share of problems with vicious comments left on his blog.

He now watches his blog Screenshots closely to swiftly delete seditious opinions which often pour in when he discusses race-related topics.

Mr Ooi is ambivalent about lodging police reports against commentators but nevertheless felt that the move had sent out the message that the Internet was not a legal vacuum.

‘What is illegal offline is also illegal online,’ he said.

So far, the authorities have not taken action although they are not unaware of inflammatory Internet postings.

This is partly because they only act on complaints due to the sheer volume of material online, and very few complaints have been lodged.

Of the 131 complaints filed with the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) in the past year, only one dealt with sedition. That case was about a reader ‘Anwar’ who had posted a comment offensive to Muslims on Mr Ooi’s website. ‘Anwar’, a hospital lab technician, was eventually traced.

MCMC corporate communications head Adelina Iskandar said the matter was still with the prosecution department, but The Straits Times understands that a lack of technical evidence has forced the file to be shelved.

She said the authorities prefer to encourage self-regulation among Internet users.

The bloggers, too, prefer self-policing as responsible behaviour gives their writing greater weight and credibility.

‘If bloggers behave like dogs barking in the night, people will only throw shoes at them,’ said Mr Ameer.

Date Posted: 9/27/2005

In today’s NST Editorial:

EDITORIAL: Up to no good

Sept 26
WHAT was striking about the removal of the inflammatory messages posted by “good man” on the blogs — and the subsequent police reports lodged against the anonymous writer — was that it was done by the bloggers themselves.

Since blogs are bywords for freedom of expression, one would have thought that they would be the last place to practise self-censorship or to favour restraints. But regulating content on the Internet is what the proposed code of conduct by bloggers for Malaysian blogs sets out to do.

This should not be viewed as an authoritarian backlash against unfettered freedom on the Net but a level-headed admission that with freedom comes responsibility. The message that comes across is that these Malaysian bloggers are willing to accept the responsibility that comes with the free flow of information in cyberspace.

In doing so, they have rightly drawn the line against pandering to those who promote racial and religious prejudice.

Unlike those who defend at all times the unrestricted right of anyone to write what they want on the Net, the bloggers accept that there are limits to such liberties. In no country and in no medium is freedom of expression absolute.

Libel laws, for instance, prohibit both offline and online expressions that damage reputations. Since the bloggers appear to have reason to believe that “good man” was up to no good with his provocative remarks, they have every right to take issue not only with what “good man” said but also with the right to say it.

Indeed, there is a strong case not to extend the right of free speech to those who peddle racial and religious hatred. When people pen racist words to incite ill-will, they are not merely articulating hurtful opinions but also causing harm to race relations.

Those who make malicious remarks about other ethnic or religious groups should not be allowed to speak and write with impunity.

While many would agree on the need for some controls on the dissemination of information in cyberspace — and there are laws against the production of, and access to, offensive and seditious materials — the problem appears to lie with enforcement.

The threat of prosecution and punishment under the Communications and Multimedia Act 1998 does not seem to have served as a sufficient deterrent. It is significant that, to date, the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission has not brought anyone to book.

Admittedly, the nature and scale of the Internet makes it difficult to regulate what goes on in the information superhighway. Blogs and newsgroups can evade jurisdiction by being hosted on servers outside the country, and technologies are available to assure anonymity and prevent detection.

While the difficulty of bringing the online lawbreakers to trial cannot be underestimated, unless successful charges are brought against them, it would be difficult to rein in the abuses on the Internet. It is imperative, therefore, for the authorities to act decisively.

The online version is here.

‘Good man’ fails at latest attempt
HALIM SAID
KUALA LUMPUR
‘Good man’, who posted seditious messages on two blogs last week, is unrepentant.

On Sunday, he attempted to post another message on petertan.com/blog. The message was similar to the one sent to Mack Zulkifli’s blog on Friday.

Peter Tan, who spotted the malicious message at 1.07pm terminated it before it was posted for public viewing.

“The comment was malicious, so I had to remove it.”

Tan also said he would leave the matter to the police to investigate.

Meanwhile, Mack Zulkifli, whose real name is Ameer Zulkifli, was called to the Subang Jaya police district headquarters yesterday to give his statement.

Ameer said: “I have given all the details to the police and they have informed me the case will be handled by the Selangor police headquarters in Shah Alam.”

The Malay Mail had reported earlier that Tan’s and Ameer’s weblogs are among the blogs which had been randomly picked by “good man” to post his seditious and malicious messages.

On Sept 11, Tan, 39, who is araplegic, received the malicious message from ‘good man’.

He was away attending a seminar when the message was posted on his blog.

“I did not have the access to the Internet during the seminar and could not screen the incoming messages in my blog,” he said.

Ameer said ‘good man’ has been active for the past two months.

“The messages ‘good man’ sent to me were insulting,” he said.

Ameer, 34, a management consultancy senior engagement director from Subang Jaya, who started his weblog last year, hoped the police can apprehend ‘good man’.

Both bloggers have kept the seditious messages as evidence.

The online version is here.

In Malay Mail, dated September 19, 2005:

Bloggers urge others to lodge reports

KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 19
Bloggers Peter Tan and Ameer Zulkifli have urged other bloggers who have received seditious messages to also come forward and lodge police reports so as to help put a stop to this menace.

On Saturday, Ameer lodged a report at the Brickfields police headquarters here against ‘good man’ who had sent the two bloggers racist messages the past week.

But Tan was told by police that it is not necessary for him to lodge a report and that they would take down a statement from him later on.

Tan, 39, a paraplegic from Penang, said: “We urge other bloggers who have been receiving seditious messages to also promptly report to the police, and we hope that such senseless activity would stop.”

Ameer, 34, a management consultant from Subang Jaya who goes by the nickname Mack, said he will be meeting a police sergeant dealing with cyber crimes, at the Puchong station head- quarters today.

“My blog frequently touches on the issue of social responsibility, and the obligations to the stakeholders which is our readers. Well, the same should rightly apply to website administrators and moderators as well,” said Ameer.

“Towards this, Peter, Jeff Ooi and I are drafting a code of ethics for bloggers and will be approaching other bloggers to accept such a code for the good of all local bloggers.”

‘Good man’ first posted abusive messages containing racial slurs on Tan’s website petertan.com/blog on Sept 11.

On Sept 16, Ameer received a seditious message from ‘good man’ in a forum column on his website brandmalaysia.com.

The online version is here.

In today’s NST, page 16:

OPINION: Where the arm of the law isn’t long enough
Chow Kum Hor

Sept 23:
Hiding under anonymity, some Internet surfers are leaving a trail of seditious and inflammatory comments on Malaysian-run blogs. The authorities need to show they mean business in dealing with these cyber culprits, writes CHOW KUM HOR.

EVEN Opposition leader Lim Kit Siang, a staunch believer in free speech, is not averse to a little censorship when it comes to the Internet.

Since starting his own blog on Aug 30, the DAP stalwart’s online journal has been inundated with responses from readers — some of which are too objectionable, if not downright seditious, to see the light of day.

“I and a group of people managing the blog reluctantly removed these comments. It is an unpleasant thing but perhaps necessary,” says Lim in his office in Parliament as he prepares to pen an entry for his blog at limkitsiang.blogspot.com.

With a claimed average of 2,000 unique visitors to the blog daily, some of them are bound to post comments that tread on racial, religious or politically-sensitive ground, he says.

He uses a rule-of-thumb in deciding which of the feedback is accepted: If remarks against other people are deemed offensive when used against oneself, then it would be deleted.

Lim is not alone in making sure that blogs are not perverted for the dissemination of hate or outright lies.

Recently, two bloggers, Peter Tan, 39, and Ameer Zulkifli, 34, lodged police reports against an anonymous writer who posted malicious messages on their blogs.

Ameer, better known in the blogosphere as “Mack”, describes his report as a “pre-emptive measure”. “Your blog is like your home. If any crime is committed there, you are duty-bound to lodge a police report.

“You do not want to be an accessory to the crime,” says the Subang Jaya-based management consultant.

Under the Communications and Multimedia Act (CMA) 1998, the owner of a website or blog will be held accountable for offensive, seditious or defamatory content — even if these are posted by others.

Fellow blogger Aizuddin Danian gives an analogy: “Take the case of newspapers. If they publish seditious letters from readers, the newspapers are also held accountable.”

While Malaysian bloggers advocate the free flow of ideas and information, they also want to see responsible conduct online. Many feel the onus should fall on the bloggers to ensure that the public platform they offer is not hijacked for illicit purposes. Unfortunately, that is about as far as it goes.

The two main authorities — the police and the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) — have no means of effectively monitoring Malaysian-run blogs, a figure estimated to run into the tens of thousands.

“It would be an endless task to monitor everything that appears on the Internet,” says MCMC corporate communications head Adelina Iskandar. “We therefore act on complaints.”

But Federal Territory Umno Youth chief Datuk Norza Zakaria is unhappy with the authorities’ slow response to illegal postings on the Web compared with countries like Singapore. Three Singaporeans were recently arrested and charged for posting remarks derogatory to Muslims on their blogs.

“We are too slow. Authorities must act faster. Don’t forget we live in a multi-racial country,” he says. “We need to take the first step. We need to bridge the gap between the authorities and culprits and let these culprits know that we are serious.”

The “first step” came in the form of Ameer’s and Tan’s Sept 17 police report against the anonymous surfer going by the nickname “good man”, who had posted racist diatribes on their websites.

Ameer says the number of irresponsible comments to his blog at www.brandmalaysia. com has fallen since, although “good man” has intensified his posting spree.

He has also provided the police with the poster’s Internet Protocol (IP) address, which is a series of unique numbers that can help track the Internet Service Provider and the origin of the postings.

Ameer adds that if “good man” can be traced and charged, it will serve as a reminder that surfers are not completely anonymous online. “Then, people will be more cautious about what they can or cannot say.”

Still, given the seamless nature of the Internet, building up a case against online offenders is no easy task.

For the first six months of this year, the MCMC received 131 complaints, ranging from the pornography-related to seditious messages.

“The first thing we do is to get the IP addresses. Then we see if the contents are offensive. We also work with the police,” says Adelina.

But so far, the regulatory body has not brought anyone to book.

For one, the MCMC has no jurisdiction if the computer servers of alleged offenders are located overseas. And then, there are numerous software and security loopholes that tech-savvy surfers can exploit.

These include “bouncers”, IP-masking software, open proxies and “anonymisers”. The authorities are also powerless to act against cyber criminals who operate from outside the country.

Even the police are sometimes stumped trying to stay abreast of the latest technological advances and the proliferation of blogs, most of which are hosted overseas.

Deputy Internal Security Minister Chia Kwang Chye, however, warns computer users against testing the Government’s resolve to nail down criminals on the Internet.

Ameer wants the Government to require all cybercafe patrons to register before using the facilities.

“There is no need to be afraid or hide under anonymity if you are not doing anything illegal. You must be accountable for what you say and write.”

He is also getting support from fellow bloggers to draw up and adopt a “manifesto” on the dos and don’ts in the blogosphere. “It will be our informal code of conduct.”

Aizuddin, who owns and manages Project Petaling Street, which serves as a directory for Malaysian blogs, says that in the final analysis, bloggers themselves are responsible for the content on their websites.

He just wants the authorities to give some leeway for bloggers who do not remove seditious content on time. “We can’t be monitoring our blogs 24 hours a day. Give us 48 hours to remove them.”

By that time, however, the damage might already have been done.

Now that two police reports have been lodged over the posting of seditious messages online, the ball is in the authorities’ court.

It is up to the police to send a strong signal to Malaysian surfers that they do not tolerate abuse of the Internet’s freedom and scorn for the nation’s laws — whether from “anonymous” surfers or otherwise.

Case referred to deputy public prosecutor

IN October 2004, an Internet surfer going by the nickname “Anwar” posted a message on “Screenshots”, a blog owned and managed by Jeff Ooi.

The respondent in Ooi’s forum argued that it was unacceptable to compare Islam Hadhari and money politics to “water and oil” because water and oil are suci (pure).

The person, instead, stated that Islam Hadhari and money politics were like “faeces and urine”.

This raised the ire of Umno Youth, with vice-head Khairy Jamaluddin demanding that Ooi apologise for allowing the profanity to be published.

Ooi had earlier removed the posting and blocked the anonymous “Anwar” from his website.

Energy, Water and Communications Minister Datuk Seri Dr Lim Keng Yaik then directed his officials to investigate the case.

Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission corporate communications head Adelina Iskandar, when contacted this week for an update, says the case is now before the deputy public prosecutor.

The online version is here.