Censorship in the Information Age

Last week, the Malaysian Communication and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) directed Malaysian internet service providers (ISPs) to block access to The Malaysian Insider.

The Malaysian Insider is the latest in a series of local and foreign websites blocked in Malaysia, allegedly for jeopardising “public order”.

Prior to The Malaysian Insider, whistleblower website Sarawak Report, weekly publication The Heat and business newspaper The Edge Financial Daily, along with content aggregator, Medium, were also blocked or suspended, as the case may be for print publications.

It may have been viable to blot out pieces of information as a means of maintaining social order in the yesteryears, when newspapers, TV and radio were the sole sources of information on what is happening in the country, region or world.

People of that era too, arguably, questioned the actions of their government less than their present day counterparts. However, the credibility of both our government and local mass media were also, arguably, of a much higher standing in those days.

But in this day and age, with multiple avenues available to obtain the same news, is such censorship still a practical method of restricting information flow, or will it, in the process of trying to do some good, inadvertently have the exact opposite effect?

Today’s readers are also generally better informed and financially more well off. They can also better afford foreign news subscriptions, aside from the local ones, fuelled by both intellectual curiosity as well as growing business needs as borders dissolve with a rapidly globalising economy.

There are a few ways to block access to "undesirable" websites. Barring the most sophisticated methods, most blocks, including those frequently employed by local ISPs, can be quite simply circumnavigated around by changing some parameters in the web browser or network settings – by changing DNS values or employing proxy servers, or the more complex method of using virtual private networks.

Thanks to social media, even the least tech savvy of Malaysian internet users would have been exposed to at least the very basic of such methods.

Would this not then render such actions of blocking access to websites quite an ineffective method of curtailing the flow of material that the government does not feel Malaysian readers should see?

If anything, the short time taken to work around such a block could in fact cause people to be even more curious and increase the readership of such "undesirable" content that is being censored in the first place.

For instance, Sarawak Report only became a household name after it was banned by the government.

Blocking of certain well known websites, such as Medium, would only serve to highlight these sort of blocks on an international level, given the high profile of such websites.

It also serves to highlight Putrajaya's inability to deal with the issue using other laws, so much so that the authorities are “forced” to resort to blocking – a move that could be seen as quite harsh and against the spirit of press freedom.

It also goes against the spirit of the MSC Malaysia Bill of Guarantees’ 7th promise – to ensure no censorship of the internet.

Of course, we are not alone in employing such drastic steps. Countries such as China, North Korea and Iran routinely block websites they feel are detrimental to their citizens. Along with these usual suspects, perhaps more surprisingly, India, the United Kingdom and the United States too, practise some form of internet censorship or surveillance.

That shouldn’t mean we should employ whatever those countries do.

Even if news or reports carried by these sites are deemed to be seditious or dangerous to society, surely there are other laws that can be used instead of a complete block.

The internet, after all, does not operate in a legal vacuum. Even locally, internet users and content publishers have successfully been sued or criminally charged for, among others, sedition, defamation and libel.

No less than 13 laws govern Malaysian internet usage, with at least six agencies, including MCMC enforcing those laws.

With these laws in place, and the abovementioned workarounds available, is blocking websites really necessary, let alone effective, these days? – March 1, 2016.

* This is the personal opinion of the writer, organisation or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insider.