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Malaysian Government Wants Internet Filtering
Posted by
Soulskill
on Fri Aug 07, 2009 11:07 PM
from the it's-fashionable-these-days dept.
from the it's-fashionable-these-days dept.
adewolf tips news that the government of Malaysia is looking into the development of an internet filtering program. According to a Reuters report, "A vibrant Internet culture has contributed to political challenges facing the government, which tightly controls mainstream media and has used sedition laws and imprisonment without trial to prosecute a blogger." The Malaysian government insists that such a filter would only be used to block pornography, though critics of the plan expect it would be wielded as a political tool, censoring websites that are critical of the current administration. "An industry source says the government could impose the filters late this year or in 2010, coinciding with the rollout of a high-speed broadband network run by Telekom Malaysia. Malaysia aims to increase broadband penetration to half of all homes by 2010 as part of its drive to boost economic efficiency."
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ipv6 (Score:2)
Is it too late to note that none of these problems would occur if we adopted ipv6? "Mandatory encryption", being the most obvious benefit.
Re:ipv6 (Score:5, Insightful)
Erm, there is no mandatory encryption with IPv6.
The change from v4 that you're thinking of is IPSEC being a first class citizen to the protocol, as opposed to a backported second class citizen in the networking world.
Not that it doesn't work fine with v4, mind you.
Parent
Religion and Internet Filtering (Score:5, Interesting)
Approaching this matter from another angle, we see that Vietnam, China, and North Korea censor the Internet. The common thread among all 3 countries is that the majority of their citizens subscribes to Confucianism. Confucianism is a quasi-religion. In it, you are told how and what to think.
Is there a causal relation? Do the governments of countries inhabitated by strongly, religious people tend to filter Internet content?
Note that Russia, despite its brutal form of government, does not filter the Internet. You can write whatever you want in an Internet forum. The Kremlin censors mainly television.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Together with Iran and Turkey, Malaysia will soon be filtering its Internet content. The common thread among all 3 countries is that the majority of their citizens are Muslims.
but what about china and australia.
thats 5 countries and the internet is still kinda young. this is a trend that is just getting worse.
Re:Religion and Internet Filtering (Score:5, Insightful)
Seems to me the "common thread" between all 6 of the countries you mention is their governments fear dissent. There are plenty of Muslim and Confucian majority countries that do not censor the Internet.
Parent
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
You must admit, though, that religion provides a convenient and inexplicably politically-correct excuse for fostering repressive government and xenophobic belligerence.
For example, we should thank The Family [wikipedia.org] and those like them for the downfall of America.
Yours in trolling,
--Ethanol-fueled
captcha: descends
Re:Religion and Internet Filtering (Score:4, Interesting)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Internet_blackholes.svg [wikipedia.org]
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Not much really since those countries are unrepresentative of the Muslim world, and most, as you said, are mostly small and poor and don't have much internet access or facilities to censor it. Kosovo is arguably not a country as only a minority of the world's countries recognize it and it is under international (UN but in reality NATO) rule so it's not up to them, while Bosnia can't be called a Muslim country as only one third of the population are Muslims. On the other hand most of the
Re: (Score:2)
Australia is the ONLY non-Muslim and non-totalitarian, country that falls under either of those two classifications. Something to think about for you Aussies out there.
I have heard some of the people who want this speak, they are very eloquent and I think they genuinely believe they are doing the right thing. The problem is they keep harping on about the evils of child porn to get their point across to the point where you start to look for that monocle or small moustache.
Re:Religion and Internet Filtering (Score:4, Insightful)
I think the reason they don't censor the internet in Russia is because the government knows it would get it's ass handed to them by the good citizens of the internet if they did.
Parent
Openness and the underdog (Score:2)
In any competetive environment, it's often to the advantage of a sitrong underdog to support open standards at the expense of a strong, closed competitor. Microsoft is all about compatibility in a field when they aren't top dog.
Russia is in a similar position - they are not a leader in Internet technology, unless you include their legendary mafia, where they excell. Why would they want to regulate when they stand to profit by bilking the wealthy Americans?
Perhaps even more than in America, the Russians have
Xbox was the underdog (Score:2)
Microsoft is all about compatibility in a field when they aren't top dog.
Then why did Microsoft include a lockout chip in its original Xbox in an era when Sony was top dog and Nintendo was #2? A lockout chip reduces the compatibility of a platform with applications developed by students, hobbyists, and small businesses.
Re:Religion and Internet Filtering (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Erm, Germany is doing this too. Every country will do that. With the reason of Porn, Child Porn or whatever. But at the end it is just to protect the aristocracy, the ruling class, the dictators we always vote for.
Re: (Score:2)
In Germany this is called "Salamitaktik" (salami attack). Use terrorism (or now child porn) as a litmus test to scare of any opposition. Undo some civil rights. Once the public indignation has dissipated the next hardliner comes forward to implement the next step.
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AFAIK, Italy has no interest in censoring the Internet and it's certainly inhabited by strongly religious people. The same goes for Israel, I might add.
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Together with Iran and Turkey, Malaysia will soon be filtering its Internet content. The common thread among all 3 countries is that the majority of their citizens are Muslims.
It is not just Muslim countries but so called Christian countries as well. The usual excuses are "We want to protect you from child porn", " We need to protect children and young adults (WTF) from inappropriate material" and the best one "Think of the children". Surprisingly if you investigate the people who propose some sort of censorship they will normally be people who genuinely believe they are doing the right thing.
Two quotes come to mind when I hear about any type of censorship are "The road to hel
How does that work, again? (Score:3, Insightful)
Malaysia aims to increase broadband penetration to half of all homes by 2010 as part of its drive to boost economic efficiency.
Yeah, I'm sure you'll see a lot of economic efficiency coming from the introduction of an "internet" that's so crippled that you can't find any criticism of the government on it.
Re:How does that work, again? (Score:4, Insightful)
The world would be a much nicer place if it were true; but there seems to be room, with the right techniques, to capture a fair slice of the benefits(quite possibly not all; but a decent portion) with comparatively little of the freedom.
Parent
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
You're kidding right?
I've got this strange feeling you've never been to china, or know people living there and definitely haven't used their internet. Considering how big it is, how central it is and it's growth, the internet there is terrible. Especially if you go to access a site hosted there from outside the country.
Although this is a generalization, I've been to China several times (and I'm a nerd so I'm always online), and I've several friends and family that live there. I know "OK" is a relative relat
Re: (Score:2)
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China's economic growth is built directly on unprecedented rape of the environment, and on well-precedented rape of its labour force. Both situations are unsustainable; the latter is just part of the same cycle that led to the cultural revolution last century and similar upheavals as you go backward throughout Chinese history. They never lurch that far forward before consuming all their progress in violence and chaos, and there's no reason to believe the present lurch will be any different.
The internet is
Re: (Score:2)
If you actually read any Chinese history, you discover that they regulary destroy themselves. This makes sense when you realize that China is not and has never been an expansionist power. Heck, even Zheng He (that admiral dude before Columbus) only went to see other nations not for colonization, but so that the heathens could be collect
Re: (Score:2)
Take a step back. The cultural revolution was the culmination of a movement which was able to gather critical mass because the labor force had been so miserably treated under the incumbent feudal regime. I used the word "rape" figuratively of course (though it does apply literally as well).
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The cultural revolution was the crowning abuse in a tragic sequence that began with the rise of the communist party. The rise of the communist party is the consequence of the previous social order, an order which is rapidly being recreated today.
I don't see the point of continuing this hair-splitting game in which every statement I make is attacked for not including ten paragraphs of context which should be obvious to anyone who has paid the remotest attention to China. Yes, you read some book or whatever
Re: (Score:2)
I honestly don't see how. What's the fact that's in question here?
Did, as I claimed, the feudal system set the scene for the communist revolution?
Did, as I claimed, the communist revolution lead to an escalating series of atrocities, culminating with the most famous and easily identified, the cultural revolution?
Is the Chinese economy today, as I claimed, heading back toward the same pattern of sharp divis
Re: (Score:2)
As far as the GP poster's "
Re: (Score:2)
This was because Germany was viewed (and rightly, IMO) as the bigger threat, and the policy was well publicized as "Get Hitler First."
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Even the Japanese had no real intenti
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, I'm sure you'll see a lot of economic efficiency coming from the introduction of an "internet" that's so crippled that you can't find any criticism of the government on it.
I'm not sure I see that censoring political criticism will effect Internet commerce... Educate me.
Re:How does that work, again? (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, in the most obvious way in Malaysia, it prevents people from calling attention to all the problems caused by the corrupt relationship between the government and monopolist Telekom Malaysia. TM provides remarkably bad connectivity at remarkably high prices and manages to maintain iron fist control over the wired last mile for 98% of the population due to a weak regulatory agency (SKMM/MCMC) that spends its time sucking TM's dick instead of doing its job. If people can't shine light on this state of affairs due to political censhorship - and mark my words, that is the single and only purpose of the filtering proposal, porn is a red herring - then there's no hope for change.
This has already driven away the much-hoped-for internet economy that Cyberjaya was built, at billions of ringgit in taxpayer expense, to host.
Then there's the simple fact that a filtered internet is a slow and erratic internet. It's true in China and Saudi Arabia and Iran and it will be true here.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
This has already driven away the much-hoped-for internet economy that Cyberjaya was built, at billions of ringgit in taxpayer expense, to host.
Gee I remember driving past that place when I was in KL the first time in 2000. Recently I had to research radiotherapy services for my father in law, who is from Ipoh. I noticed that a lot of equipment is made in Malaysia for export, but it rarely gets used there. I am sure the Government wants their people to be nice productive manufacturers, but to not ask too many questions.
Over the years I have noticed places which should have taken off big time (Palau Langkawi is one which comes to mind) are not gro
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I love how apparently no one can communicate without the Internet.
You realize people dealt with this soft of problem before the Internet existed right? People actually ... talked to each other ... rather than twiting it up or facebooking.
Contrary to popular belief, the Internet is not a requirement to life, you can live without it and do pretty much everything you need to do.
I don't want filtering either, but you're just pushing your own political agenda rather than actually caring about the problem.
Re:How does that work, again? (Score:5, Insightful)
People can talk to the people they know, and the people in their community, sure. But that is very limiting:
The internet has transformed politics in Malaysia, by bringing people all over the country together based on their shared views rather than based solely on whom they happened to live nearby. It's allowed people to have open, frank discussions that previously they would only be able to have with their closest confidants. It's allowed facts and evidence to be brought to general public attention which would previously have been squelched by the BN-owned mass media.
Of course humans can survive without the internet. But in my mind there is no question that it has enabled a transformative level of communication which we are only beginning to see the full impact of.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
It's a cunning productivity drive. Without places to moan about the government, you have lots more time for your work, rather than posting to web forums.
Isn't this an oxymoron? (Score:5, Funny)
Seems kind of self contradictory - increased penetration and less pornography.
Malaysian government has already backed off (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.reuters.com/article/companyNews/idUKKLR48361520090807 [reuters.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Every year the government holds a meeting to plan its latest net censorship scheme, then every year the internet industry people leak it out to their big clients who create an uproar and then it gets quietly put away for a while.
Sooner or later they'll adjust their strategy and sneak it through. Recently we had our first major political censhorship incident when SKMM tried to block heroic gadfly website Malaysia Today [malaysia-today.net], but backed down after a couple weeks when it became clear they could not keep up with th
Aww, c'mon... (Score:2)
Could we just stick to submitting stories about countries that DON'T want to censor the internet?
It would be a lot simpler.
I'm willing to venture that most of the readers here pretty much assume they all want to anyways...
Good old Telekom Malaysia (Score:5, Informative)
I'm not surprised a country like this has decided to join China by firewalling the outside world. They have a lot to lose (by their standards) and little to gain (again, by their standards) by allowing unfettered access. And since post-modern thought says that there is no truth, only differing points of view, who can disagree with this decision? No matter how you come down on the censorship debate, there is always another equally valid point of view on the opposite side.
Re:Good old Telekom Malaysia (Score:5, Interesting)
FWIW, the bar scene in KL is much better these days.
There was a funny article in the newspaper a few years back where they interviewed (and showed photos of) a bunch of Chinese people who looked sort of Malay-ish, getting them to share their stories of being harassed during Ramadan. Some said they just gave up and ate indoors, others wore giant crucifixes, others turned around and got pre-emptively aggressive with the lunch police.
Parent
Following AU's disappointing lead, here...? (Score:2)
Australia went through an embarrassing run up the filtering road "to protect children"
Lots of silly examples of inadvertantly (or intentionally, you decide) blocked safe sites
have already been published, arising from that boondoggle..
Now, nearby Malyasia wants to follow in AU's dusty trail...?!?
not news (Score:3, Interesting)
Call me out of hibernation once we find a government OPPOSED to internet filtering...
Re:Burn, karma, burn. (Score:4, Informative)
What? Malaysia is merely thinking about mandary filtering?
In Singapore, we already have mandatory filtering since (roughly) 1996!
(Goodbye, Karma...)
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
He'll kill you first; that's the one thing he does well. He already had Altantuya Shaariibuu and Teoh Beng Hock taken care of; you don't want to be next.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
We wouldn't know; that movie was banned in Malaysia.
Of course the government has no problem with the endless movies that depict assassinations of other heads of state, but even a joke about Malaysia and the petulant UMNO children pulling the strings behind the censor's office go haywire. Ironically, in the process, they make Malaysia into more of a joke than ever.
Re: (Score:2)
In no case would it affect through traffic (e.g. from Indonesia to