Government gives ‘thumbs down’ to idea of banning Facebook

KUALA LUMPUR: The Government has given the ‘thumbs down’ to the idea of banning Facebook following cases of abuse involving the popular social network website, said Communications and Multimedia Minister Datuk Seri Ahmad Shabery Cheek.

He stressed the Government never had any intention to ban the website as more than 15 million users in Malaysia alone are registered on Facebook.

"Many people are using it for various purposes including personal communications and even online businesses.

“To ban the website is just impossible," he told a news conference at the launch of AirAsia's Redbox, a new low cost courier service Thursday.

The new service called Redbox, is designed by the airline to provide low cost courier services, providing customers up to 50% savings in costs compared to existing courier services.

Shabery also noted that banning Facebook was just a suggestion from certain quarters to try and filter the abuse on the Internet.

"The Ministry so far had received more than 2,000 reports involving Facebook abuses and when I told them we are looking into the cases, they think that we want to ban the website," he said.

He added that he had conducted a survey and the result indicated that 54% people who took part in it do not support the banning of Facebook, 24% supported the ban while the rest had neither agreed nor disagreed.