Malaysian Government Decides To Dump Its Terrible Anti-Fake News Law
from the UN-letter-writing-campaign-works dept
Malaysia’s government seized upon the term “fake news” as a way to silence coverage of internal corruption. The new law gave the government a way to steer narratives and control negative coverage, going beyond its already-tight control of local media. It would have worked out well for Prime Minister Najib Razak, who was facing a lot of negative coverage over the sudden and unexplained appearance of $700 million in his bank account.
Razak is no longer Prime Minister. His replacement, Mahathir Mohamad, claimed he would abolish the law if elected. Once elected, Mohamad walked back his promise, replacing “abolish” with “modify.” In the meantime, the law had already claimed at least one victim, a Danish national visiting Malaysia who made dubious claims on YouTube about police response time following the shooting of an activist.
UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of expression, David Kaye, had already officially complained to Malaysia’s government about its “fake news” law and the damage it would do free speech. The government appeared to have ignored this in favor of protecting itself from free speech. The outgoing prime minister may not have needed this “protection” following his ejection from the public sector, but the new boss seemingly was in no hurry to give up this new power over the press.
Surprise, surprise! David Kaye now reports the Malaysian government is dumping this terrible law, effective almost immediately. In a letter to Kaye, Malaysia’s UN ambassador states the government had reversed course on punishing fake news.
I wish to inform you that the new Government of Malaysia has decided to repeal the Anti-Fake News Act 2018. The process to do so has already begun, and a specific proposal is expected to be tabled during the upcoming Parliamentary session beginning on 16 July 2018.
This may be Prime Minister Mohamad belatedly making good on his campaign promise — one he had broken immediately after taking office by offering to “redefine” the law rather than repeal it. This is good news for Malaysian journalists (as well as Dutch visitors), who may now avoid jail sentences or fines for publishing stuff the government doesn’t agree with.
Filed Under: fake news, free speech, malaysia
Comments on “Malaysian Government Decides To Dump Its Terrible Anti-Fake News Law”
But now, how can you be sure it's real?
If the law allows fake news, how’s to tell if they really did repeal the law? Without fake news laws it’s chaos!!!
Give Mahathir some slack
Mahathir Mohamad was previously Prime Minister for over 20 years and quite the authoritarian. He had Anwar Ibrahim, his erstwhile protege, jailed on trumped-up charges, did not tolerate dissent, etc. He rejoined politics at the age of 92 because of the corruption and malaise his laws had created after his retirement.
Once back in power, it looks like he was reliving his past with this fake news law, but now has fortunately repealed the law. He did release Ibrahim from gaol as he promised, let’s see how things develop. I think there must be some heavy cultural barriers for criticising authorities in S.E. Asia, this will take time to overcome.
I looked at those Russian "fake news" posts.
and what I saw was a bunch of race baiting or similar, which was uniformly consistent with the kind of race baiting that is used by the mass media news in this country.
If they were doing it with a PAC it was perfectly legal, so sayeth SCOTUS and Citizens United v. SEC. Notably the race baiting that drastically increased by radio syndication expansion after the Clinton telcom deregulation, in my experience was way worse. It totally saturated rural areas, and was often broadcast during worktime in shops to employees who often had no alternative but to have that bullshit pumped into their heads.
IOW, the combined efforts of Bill Clinton and Rush Limbaugh make the Russian “Fake News” Conspiracy look like a bunch of pussies.
So all these flailing assholes in the news did by manufacturing a “Fake News” meme was empower third world countries with a tool they could use to opress their own citizenry, while remaining largely exempt from WTO sanctions. Because hey, if the Yanks can do it, so can we.
But now, how can you be sure it's real?
If the law allows fake news, how’s to tell if they really did repeal the law? Without fake news laws it’s chaos!!!
Oh, that’s what I did with the money, my mistake.
Have Najib Razak contact me and I can give him my account details for him to transfer that $700m back into my account.
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Re: Fuck off, spammer
That is all.