The Communications and Multimedia Ministry is considering a proposal to require eligible online news portals to register with the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC).
Minister Salleh Said Keruak said the idea was to make news portals in the country more responsible and enable the MCMC to determine the volume of visitors to such portals.
The matter was in the final stage of discussion before being presented to the Attorney-General’s Chambers by the end of this year, he said to reporters after presenting the prizes for the Merdeka 2017 Instagram (Photo and Video) Competition and launching the album of the Patriots band in Kuala Lumpur.
Special Affairs Department (Jasa) director-general Mohd Puad Zarkashi was also present at the event.
“Registration will be based on certain criteria which will determine whether the news portals are eligible for registration or otherwise. Upon registration, all the news portals will be subject to the laws of the Communications and Multimedia Act, and this will facilitate control and monitoring by MCMC,” said Salleh.
He said that besides the registration of the print media, the registration of online media was also the practice in other countries, including Singapore.
What a surprise, Minister Salleh Keruak, who achieved promotion as Najib’s most enthusiastic cheerleader, promoting all manner of gross untruths throughout the scandal over 1MDB, wants to censor those who have been by and large disseminating truth.
Salleh wants to be able to decide who gets to host a website and what they get to put on it.
Not only does he want this access to censorship, he also wants to achieve a totalitarian control by monitoring who reads what on these sites as well.
Since Salleh is not the greatest brain and since he has been shown to be a repeat promoter of self-serving lies on behalf of a criminal conspiracy to steal billions from the public, this is a deeply worrying power he ought not have. Even were he to be a sensible and honest person, such weapons should never be available to fall into the hands of villains.
He justifies it by saying that other notoriously oppressive states use these weapons already.
Is Salleh hoping to rush in these controls, so that he can silence the online media before the election? You bet he is!
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