KUALA LUMPUR: Sitting at his computer, Abid Mahammad types quickly then clicks the “tweet” button to deliver news of the days political machinations in Malaysia. He is an avid Twitter user and Facebook news gatherer. For him, writing daily has become part of his life, almost second nature. But recent government statements on social media policy and usage under the legal system has him worried. “It is definitely something we are watching and waiting to see what happens because to be penalized for something we say online or on Twitter would just be ridiculous,” the university student from Penang told Bikyamasr.com. For him, social media is an “extension of who I am and if the government wants to crackdown, I will personally get people to protest.” He was referring to recent statements from the ministry of information, communications and culture, which stated there needed to be a “balance between the need to uphold the law and the need to maintain privacy in the social media.” For Mahammad, this is close to his heart. “I use different names for different purposes, because I cannot let it affect my actual job. They wouldn't like it, so the government talking about anonymity is really worrying,” he added. Ministry Secretary General Kamaruddin Siaraf said Wednesday that it was time that “the authorities create better understanding with social media providers and to understand the commercial policies which governed the use of these social media applications.” This comes as the government is currently discussing new means of overseeing how social media functions as it withdrew the colonial Sedition Law that criminalized all public opposition. Prime Minister Najib Razak has said that the new “National Harmony Act” would ensure freedom of speech as a foundation for Malaysia. Mahammad hopes the government follows through because “this is what we Malaysians expect.” “Malaysia is very concerned with the fact that crimes are committed and laws disregarded because clever use of Internet applications and the social media sometimes provide a ‘cloak of anonymity',” continued Siaraf. “This cloak of anonymity has given rise to a multitude of social problems such as cyber bullying and harassment. “Unfortunately, there is no definitive way to compute the number of such cases as we know that not all victims report such incidents to the authorities and those who do, rarely receive legal recourse because of the anonymous nature of the Internet,” he said when opening the two-day ITU-Asean Forum on Promoting Effective and Secure Social Media. While the likes of Mahammad and other bloggers and activists using social media remain free to post and write as they want, the suspicion that the government is heading toward a crackdown is in the backs of their mind. “My friends, fellow bloggers and activists are definitely worried,” he added.
