Censoring the Internet

1. Not knowing the power of the Internet, I promised that we (speaking as the Prime Minister of Malaysia) would not censor it. But today I have changed my mind.

2. I have done so because the players, including those controlling the servers have been applying their own censorship of what can appear in this alternative media. I myself have suffered from such censorship.

3. When I put on my blog, an article on the Jews, without any explanation, my article was prevented from being linked to Facebook.

4. But that is not all. I first used the internationally available platform to host my blog. When hundreds of thousands visited my blog, suddenly the platform rejected hosting my blog site.

5. I changed the platform but again it was blocked. I have now changed servers and platforms three times. Still there have been attempts to block my blog. Not to mention the numerous spam and virus attacks against my blog.

6. Blocking is of course a form of censorship. The internet is not the free alternative to the state-controlled print and electronic media it is touted to be. It is subject to even more censorship than Governments could exercise. The people who hosts these platforms and servers can censor. And various other means are available to the powerful controllers of the new media for them to censor in the interest of their politics.

7. There is no freedom of the alternative media. Governments and the owners of servers and platforms and assorted others can censor the alternative media. It is actually less free than print and electronic media operating under Government licences.

8. I think it is time we stop talking of the freedom of the press. Let us admit that the press needs to be censored. It needs to be censored because freedom, any kind of freedom will always be open to abuse. The worst abuses are in the field of morality.

9. The internet has played a major role in undermining public morality. Our children are not safe from the kind of filth that the print and electronic media promote. Today any child can access pornography of the worse kind. Children are no longer safe from sexual assault. So are young girls and boys as the internet arouses the kind of base feelings that we curbed before.

10. Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender or LGBT is openly touted as a part of human rights. We accept that some people are born with indeterminate sex. They were forced to hide their unusual proclivities. But now that LGBT is accepted, normal people have also taken up the practices of those who were born handicapped. And worse still certain religions have abrogated the injunctions of their religion against abnormal sex so as to be seen to be keeping up with the times.

11. Incest, child sex, sex with animals, sexual parties, sex in public and many other practices which we still feel are wrong will soon be a part of the expression of freedom and equality. All these will be promoted on the internet.

12. I don’t care how sacred is freedom but I think the time has come for Governments, at least the Malaysian Government to censor the internet.

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*The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the position of Astro AWANI.