Malaysia Reins In The Internet

Longtime Anwar backers feel the heat

Unless there is an unlikely last-minute climbdown, tomorrow Malaysia’s government plans to extend its controversial colonial-era Printing Presses and Publications Act to social media and messaging platforms, subjecting them to greater government oversight and stirring concern among former backers of Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, who point out that in fact one of his Pakatan Harapan coalition’s longstanding electoral planks before he took power was to abolish the media licensure act altogether.

The decision to rein in the Internet will apply to social media with more than 8 million users including Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, Telegram and X. It reverses a 1996 assessment by former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad to grant absolute freedom when he was setting up the country’s state-of-art Multimedia Super Corridor. The country has stuck by that decision for 28 years despite regrets voiced in 2013 by the former premier, one of Asia’s great autocrats, that internet freedom has empowered and enabled opposition parties.

Mahathir’s decision to keep information free turned the country into one of the great cauldrons of internet ferment in Asia, particularly because the mainstream media is owned and tightly controlled by the government or political parties. Malaysians including politicians  have turned to  Facebook, Twitter and other platforms including online news portals written by professional journalists to dissect politics, share stories from the media and chat with friends. As long ago as 2017, the Internet had become the main platform for free discussion with broadband penetration rates of 103.6 percent per 100 inhabitants — two phones?— and 81.8 per 100 household.

At least 44 organizations including Bersih, the Center for Independent Journalism, Amnesty International Malaysia, Parti Sosialis Malaysia, and the Malaysian United Democratic Alliance and 23 individual activists in an open letter to Anwar have condemned the licensing proposal as a “blatant abuse of power” and “an attack on a healthy, functioning democracy” that will “shrink public participation, social media and online messaging platforms.
“Social media is a democratic tool that has been wielded by ordinary people to expose untruths and mobilize collective action,” according to a statement by the NGO  Lawyers For Liberty. “It has been instrumental to ensure that the state or even the international news media would be unable to suppress unsavory or unfavorable news from reaching the ears of the public. The most recent example is of course how social media was able to cause massive waves on the support of the Palestinian cause, made possible due to the ability of individuals from within Palestine to share and disseminate news of the horrors they suffered through these platforms.”

Proponents of the law have blamed the outcry on what they call the "Bangsar Bubble," a reference to a residential suburb on Kuala Lumpur’s near flank that includes the artistic community, young, liberal professionals, trendy restaurants, the opposition news portal Malaysiakini and the country’s most popular television channel.

Government leaders insist the  modification to the law is necessary to curb online fraud, cyberbullying, child sexual exploitation,  sexual harassment and assault. Enforcement, they say will also include provisions for a ‘kill switch’ protocol, placing responsibility on social media service providers and internet messaging service providers. The vast majority of its enforcement actions, the communications ministry said, are curb online gambling and scams.

“Print is passe,” said a Kuala Lumpur-based political analyst. “They are going for the social media like Instagram, Telegram, Facebook –not a bad thing but knowing them, they want to stop criticism against themselves.”

Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, the UMNO president whose corruption trial on 47 criminal breach of trust (CBT), corruption and money laundering charges involving funds was mysteriously suspended after Anwar named him to his current position, said the government will shut down “unlicensed” social media platforms and internet messaging services on January 1, 2025.

The extension of the law has drawn an extraordinary rebuke from Ambiga Sreenavasan, one of the county’s most prominent human rights lawyers, a former president of the Malaysian Bar Council, co-chairperson of the good-government NGO Bersih and onetime Anwar ally, who said "I never thought I would see the day when the PH-led government that lives on the platform of fighting for the Abolition of the PPPA will instead maintain it and enforce the new licensing law. Our unity government can now be crowned as the most dictatorial government we have ever had. Well done!”

Hyperbole aside, Ambiga’s comments have earned her a backlash from commentators on pro-Anwar news portals like Malaysiakini and in social media who, for instance, caution not to “allow too much freedom for the scammers and criminals to flourish. Some form of control is needed. Old age savings are lost, and livelihoods are destroyed. Individuals are not able to defend themselves against organized crimes, more so on the internet platforms. Regulations and interventions are needed to protect the citizens. Let’s support this initiative.”

Nonetheless, Ambiga is one of a number of former Anwar backers dismayed by what are regarded as clampdowns on the press and tough action on dissenting speech, saying the government has done little or nothing about corruption, made common cause with the deeply corrupt United Malay National Organization, and failed to carry out any the significant reforms promised prior to forming the government. Licensing the media, they complain, gives the government the power to grant licenses only to those who favor its policies. She is echoed by most of the legal and journalism professions in the country.

There is particular government irritation over encrypted platforms like Telegram, which is designed to protect its users from the government’s prying eyes – although this government, critics note, is one of several Southeast Asian ones known to have purchased versions of the formidable Israeli-suppled software Pegasus, so-called “zero-click” or “no-click” spyware that can infect any device without user interaction. Pegasus can exploit messaging apps including iMessage, WhatsApp, and SMS to gain access to any target’s device to intercept and record any interaction via e-mails, phone calls, texts, and even encrypted messages Telegram and Signal. With Pegasus, the government can read almost anything it wants to.

The ruling coalition is currently on a roll, riding an unaccustomed wave of success, with record foreign direct investment, a surge of western supply-chain companies seeking to escape from China, “sustained strength in economic activity…driven by resilient domestic expenditure and better export performance lifted by the global tech upcycle,” and with tourist arrivals and spending poised to rise further according to Bank Negara, the country’s central bank. Fear of a “green” Islamic wave from the opposition waiting in the wings to take over should it stumble has kept the coalition’s component parties firmly in check.

But despite the political comfort zone, the government appears remarkably insecure. It is said by TikTok to have submitted the world’s highest number of content takedown requests in the second half of 2023. It is TikTok where the opposition Perikatan Nasional coalition is strongest. In May the Paris-based Reporters Sans Frontiers reported Malaysia fell from 73d to 107th of 180 countries on its RSF Press Freedom Index. Online news portals and bloggers say they’ve been blocked periodically by the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission, which maintains jurisdiction over online media including Utusan TV, Malaysia Today, the Malaysian Chronicle and Malaysia Now have all been blocked. Readers have also complained that Asia Sentinel has been blocked intermittently although the minister, Fahmi Fadzil, has personally denied it.

The act, a 1948 vestige of British colonial rule, was amended by Mahathir after Operation Lalang in 1987 in which he ordered the arrest of political activists, opposition politicians, intellectuals, students, artists, scientists, and others without trial. All printing presses were required to renew their licenses annually. It was subsequently amended in 2012 to remove the requirement for annual license application and the government's absolute discretion over permits, and reinstated judicial overview. Along with the Security Offences (Special Measures) Act 2012, which succeeded the draconian British colonial Internal Security Act, which allows for detention without trial, the Sedition Act and the Communications and Multimedia Act as political weapons to investigate and silence critics of the government, including those currently in power.

Fahmi says all will be fine

“They have unashamedly curtailed freedom of speech and threaten to do more by making the Printing Presses and Publications Act extend to the internet,” another of Anwar’s former backers said. “We had fought for the abolishment of this act previously as opposition. He says a lot of impressive-sounding things but there is little follow-up. Many who supported PH feel very let down. But when they say they feel that, they are reminded the other side is worse. There is a lack of direction and when an authoritative voice of moderation and justice is needed, he is silent.”

“In all of this, there's no mention that on Twitter, or X, Elon Musk censors whoever he wants, so a tech tycoon, a businessman answerable only to his shareholders, can impose censorship on the platform he owns?” asked a pro-government observer favoring the extension to social media. “But an elected government accountable to its citizens can’t even license these social media platforms if they don’t heed legal and societal norms of a country they operate in?”