What’s the big deal with Twitter policing?

I am a bit baffled that many, including The New York Times, think it odd that the Inspector-General of Police (IGP) Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar is policing Twitter.

It is odd that the American publication, which exists in a nation that polices emails and sends youth to court for tweets and Instagram posts, is making such a big deal out of it.

It is a bit too much “pot calling the kettle black”; and by pot, we are not talking of the legalised herb in a few states. Also, if many in New York reading this did not know, guess who the Royal Malaysian Police recently consulted with?

The New York Police Department, of course. So thanks again for the lessons. I am guessing your police taught our IGP to take Twitter seriously.

Social media policing has been going on for some time. In the United States, it has reached a point where teens are being arrested for emojis.

In fact, did not the state of Massachusetts even arrest an aspiring rapper for posting his lyrics post-Boston marathon bombing? Thank goodness a grand jury did not decide to continue with an indictment.

If we look at Turkey, yet another nation “praised” by opposition party PKR and its leadership, teenagers and even a former beauty queen were arrested over Facebook posts ridiculing their president.

On January 23 this year, Merve Buyuksarac was arrested for quoting a poem found in a Turkish satirical magazine. On February 2, a Dutch journalist also got in trouble with the nation for so-called “terrorist propaganda” over posts about the banned Kurdish Workers’ Party.

Do I need to remind everyone that Turkey even arrested those who posted protest messages on Twitter?

A bit closer to home, on November 4, a Thai student was jailed for insulting the country’s king on Facebook. In fact, another one was just jailed on Valentine’s Day for the same reason, sentenced for two and a half years.

And yet in our own country, having our own IGP actually combing Facebook and acting on complaints in this country is considered suspect and wrong?

Grow up.

The entire world is looking at social networks for a clue of future attacks on governments.  Moreover, some are using it to weed out political enemies, either by using the state or simply by using private resources.

Here is what I truly do not understand about all these.

Representatives from political parties contest in elections and, thus, win and become elected lawmakers. The lawmakers are supposed to pore over legislation and either approve or reject it, which will be enforced by relevant authorities, among them the police and their IGP.

Yet when the lawmakers disagree with law enforcement of the laws they enact or fail to quash, suddenly it is the IGP’s fault?

Grow up.

If you worry of double standards, fine. Go find some troll from the other side of the political divide you can rat out to the IGP on Twitter, just like their side is doing to you.

It is the systematic failure of the opposition to continually fight against laws that we require – or even continue to sustain those fights – that is utterly reprehensible. You are elected lawmakers for a reason.

That you suddenly though it was convenient to earn brownie points by going to the streets and bashing people who are tasked to simply enforce the law is downright dumb.

Let me put it simply. The IGP is not the problem. The law is the problem. So go campaign to get rid of it.

Simply put: stop whining, get someone from your side to be a Twitter-snitch to the IGP and go do your jobs. And for goodness' sake, keep up the pressure to repeal the Sedition Act! – February 17, 2015. 

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