MCMC, stop playing Big Brother!

I FIND it totally unacceptable that the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) has been playing Big Brother all these years. It got worse in the months leading up to GE14.

It censored and blocked online content. And “to maintain public order”, it even took people to court over actions that it believed to be “detrimental to the public”. It has the audacity to say that blocking certain websites is in line with the laws of the country.

The saddest thing is the fact that MCMC was pandering to a government that was, to most people, trying to suppress the truth.

Even the slightest complaint, normally from members of the then ruling party, was immediately acted upon.

MCMC must come clean on how many such “instructions” have led to it blocking blogs, websites and such.

I am a believer in free expression and a free press. But I agree freedom must come with responsibility.

As a former journalist, I am against all laws that stifle freedom of the press.

I made known my displeasure regarding the passing of the Anti-Fake News Bill even in my speech at the launch of National Journalists’ Day just before the election.

I have reservations about the Printing Presses and Publications Act, Sedition Act, Official Secrets Act and Section 233(1) of the Communications and Multimedia Act.

We are living in a different world now. It is hilarious when the government starts banning books, for books are not only sold at bookshops. It is even stranger to push for the Anti-Fake News Act when we have trouble defining “fake news”.

Worse, it is like a pukat tunda (dragnet) dragging along everything in its wake.

It stifles creativity. It affects not just journalists but artistes, comedians, cartoonists and almost everyone else.

It is widely known that MCMC has been blocking not just the Sarawak Report website since July 2015, but even the blogs of locals who are critical of the government. Among the bloggers is Syed Akbar Ali, who achieved notoriety for his no-holds-barred posts.

Suddenly, on the morning of May 16, Syed Akbar, the gentleman behind OutSyed The Box, gleefully found out his blog had been unblocked.

He has become almost a cult hero for his moves to outsmart MCMC, but he is not alone.

There are many other websites that have been similarly targeted.

According to the commission, from 2016 until January 2018, it has blocked 3,110 websites for various offences.

The fact that MCMC blocked the GE14 results page live.undi.info on polling night is disgusting.

Malaysians were anxiously waiting for the “official results” from the Election Commission (EC), which were slow to come for mysterious reasons.

The nation had all been aware of the result of the tsunami before the EC made the announcement that Pakatan Harapan had overwhelmed Barisan Nasional at 3.45 in the morning.

This is a lesson to MCMC. Lest it forgets, the regulatory body has set forth 10 national policy objectives, and the last time I checked, censoring and blocking websites are never overtly spelled out.

The second objective is “to promote a civil society where information-based services will provide the basis of continuing enhancements to quality of work and life”.

I have a selfish reason to argue the case for freedom on the Internet. Together with Tan Sri Clifford Francis Herbert, Tan Sri Nuraizah Abdul Hamid and a few others, I was among the first to be appointed to the board of Multimedia Development Corporation (MDC) back in the 1990s.

When Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad mooted the idea of the Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC), MDC was set up to oversee the MSC and to advise the government on legislation and policies and to set the perimeters for multimedia operations.

Dr Mahathir the visionary saw the need to join the Internet domain (the term “digital era” came a decade later). Back then, the Internet was already sweeping the world, though it was still in the early stages. Computerisation was new. Internet was the river of knowledge and information at the time.

We were grappling to understand the tsunami of change that happened with the advent of the Internet. We were talking about seven flagship applications for the government and an MSC triangle made up of Cyberjaya, Putrajaya and Kuala Lumpur.

We invited major players in the Internet world to talk to us and learned from them. Everything was a learning curve for us.

And thanks to Dr Mahathir’s vision and the able leadership of its chairman, the late Tan Sri Othman Yeop Abdullah, MDC (now known as Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation or MDEC) was placed on a strong foundation.

All along we believed that the country would benefit from our foray into the digital realm, which it has. Yes, it is a double-edged sword and it has its problems and dangers.

But what has brought us to where we are today is nothing short of a revolution in the way we communicate, work and live. We are also seeing a robust digital economy.

We started by promising the world that there will be no censorship of the Internet.

Let’s keep that promise!

Johan Jaaffar was a journalist, editor and, for some years, chairman of a media company. He is passionate about all things literature and the arts. The views expressed here are entirely his own.