Internet: What is Malaysia's "internet filter" for?

In the 1990s, when setting up what was then termed the Multimedia Super Corridor (which, applicants soon found out was not a corridor as depicted on the map in the lobby of the then headquarters of the MSC but rather some carefully selected "plots") the Government included what it termed the Bill of Guarantees. Amongst them was "no censorship of the internet."

That applied to companies registered as MSC status companies. The rest of the country did not enjoy the same privilege. But, because of the benefits of putting the technology in MSC approved premises, it turned out that the whole of Malaysia's internet was managed through companies with MSC status.

But, and here's a big but, MSC status lasts for ten years. And for many companies that ten years is coming to an end.

Malaysians, and others living in Malaysia, are subject to scrutiny on what they publish, regardless of where it is published. As a result, Malaysians posting material deemed seditious have been called to account even where it has been posted on blogs hosted overseas. Some have argued that this is internet censorship. Indeed, Gayathry Venkiteswaran, Executive Director of The Malaysian Bar Council, recently wrote in a letter to the SinChew newspaper and reproduced on the Bar Council's website " Internet control is not new in Malaysia. Among those who have faced investigations and court actions, website closure and government censure include bloggers Raja Petra Kamaruddin, Jeff Ooi, Nathanial Tan, Jed Yoong, Syed Abidi Syed Aziz, Abdul Rashid Bakar and others. The reasons have ranged from allegedly seditious content, but civil society groups have described the series of persecution as denial of rights to political expression. This year, eight people were also charged under the Communications and Multimedia Act for posting comments against the members of the royal family in Perak, north of the capital, following the political crisis in the state."

However, his article failed to draw attention to the contrary argument that this is, in principle, no different to a private citizen issuing an action for libel. Malaysia does not yet have a court decision on the question of where an internet article is published and so it is instructive to look at cases in England which, because of Common Law, have persuasive precedent in Malaysia. In England, it is settled law that the harm is suffered where the material is read and that those whose material is published in a medium that can be read outside its own borders must have regard to the risks of so doing.

Therefore, it is arguable that those who have published their articles outside Malaysia in a form that can be read within Malaysia cannot use the "foreign pamphlet" defence.

Malaysia exercises strict control over print media - although far less than in times gone by. There are elements which claim that their special interests - be they religious, political or even commercial - must be protected by gagging the press. There has been, since Abdullah Badawi became Prime Minister, a significant relaxation of that policy and it is arguable that it is only the most extreme, or those that persistently bait the government taunting them to arrest them, that have been subject to sanctions.

Against that background, a report by The Malaysian Insider last week caused uproar but not surprise. The once underground website which is now becoming dangerously close to mainstream said that the MCMC was inviting bids from companies to install an "internet filter" similar in concept to China's so-called Green Dam" project. Publicly, at least, China has backed down but it already has a highly intrusive monitoring system. So do several places in the Middle East where visitors often find their internet access to what they consider totally innocuous websites reaches a government interjected page saying that access to the requested site is barred due to unaccetable content. Bizarrely, in one country, almost all the content on Archive.Org is blocked even when the current version of the site is not.

Almost immediately, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak, part of a political dynasty, said that there would be no censorship of the internet. He did not restrict his comments to MSC status companies.

But the MCMC has confirmed that it has asked for proposals. But the purpose, it says, is not to filter (the polite term for censor) but to monitor for access to e.g. pornography.

Aside from "thin end of the wedge" arguments that are so obvious that they do not need to be rehearsed here, there is the simple truth that, once technology is introduced, it is almost never removed.

But there is another factor: there is absolutely no need for Malaysia to have this technology: if it is true that the purpose is to monitor how people use the internet the data they want is already available to them, ironically on the 'web. For free.

It's called Google. Google produces reports showing what people search for and even backs it up with geo-location. So, for example, Google has published data showing where in Malaysia the most searches for pornography originate from.

Therefore the value of the project within the terms the MCMC says will apply is already open to question. If the PM is right, and there will be no censorship, then the point of installing a monitoring system into Malaysia's already dismal international internet connection seems lost.