AUTHOR: ISABELLE L.

(2018)

TITLE: The Importance of Internet Censorship in Malaysia

What a wonderful offer in my notification? Can I click it? If you have clicked it, there is
a chance that you are going to be cheated. After all, curiosity kills the cat. Thus, it will be better
to ignore something that is bizarre yet attractive in your notification as a safety measure.
Nowadays, our personal information is constantly being exposed to the public since there is no
restriction over it. Besides, we cannot completely prevent anyone from accessing our personal
data with the modern technologies that could break through the firewall in a split second.
According to Surin (2015), “Internet needs to be censored because freedom, any kind of freedom
will always be open to abuse”. That is the main reason why Malaysia still practices internet
censorship. The important keys of internet censorship in Malaysia are monitoring online scams,
preventing people from viewing harmful or sensitive content, and strengthening the security of
the country.
Internet censorship is important in monitoring online scams in Malaysia. There are many
types of online scams over the internet. However, it is best to focus more on the top online scams
on the internet. The top online scams are “phishing scams”, “advanced fee fraud”, “greeting card
scams”, “reshipping and payment processing fraud”, “lottery winning scams” and “scareware
scams” (Landesman, 2018). According to the Malaysia Computer Emergency Response Team
(2017), fraud had the highest percentage (47.99%) out of the total reported incidents based on the
general incident of the year 2017 in Malaysia. This shows that online scams or frauds need to be
monitored to reduce the number of incidents in Malaysia. The internet requires censorship that
could reduce online scams on the internet. According to the Malaysian Communications and
Multimedia Commission (2017), the percentage of users doing online shopping was 48.8% out
of Malaysia’s internet users in 2017. For example, the National Consumer Complaints Centre
received the most complaints from the e-commerce sector for two successive years (Pillay, 2017).
The internet censorship could help to filter out some of the scams for the online shopping by
restricting people from visiting the fake website. Hence, internet censorship is indeed important
as it can monitor the online scams in Malaysia.
Moreover, internet censorship in Malaysia is important in preventing people from
viewing harmful or sensitive content on the internet. The internet is accessible to anyone
regardless of age and gender. Therefore, internet censorship restricts people from viewing
harmful or sensitive content on the internet such as porn websites, child pornography images,
adult dating websites, and violent videos. Furthermore, a wider audience attracted to more
dangerous and graphic images involving sexual abuse of younger children with the huge amount
of child pornography available on the internet (Beech, Elliot, Birgden & Findlater, 2008). For
example, Nur Fitri Azmeer Nordin, 23 years old, mathematician scholar from Malaysia, studied
at Imperial College in London, jailed for 5 years because he downloaded and distributed more
than 30,000 images of child pornography in 2015 (Rahim, 2015). Thus, people are restricted
from viewing those harmful or sensitive contents on the internet especially the young people.
Not to mention, children are easily tempted in some cases compared to the adults (Loftus &
Davies, 1984). Thus, it is important that Malaysia practices internet censorship in preventing
people from viewing harmful or sensitive content over the internet to give protection to the
children.
Lastly, internet censorship plays an important key to strengthening the security of the
country. The internet cannot be controlled completely because of its enormous communication
platform (Taneja, 2018). Thus, the internet needs to be controlled to monitor any crimes and
threats that will affect the national security such as terrorisms. The internet is manipulated by
terrorist organizations to increase awareness for their cause, spread propaganda, and stimulate
potential operatives throughout the world (Theohary, 2011). For example, the terrorist group,
“Islamic State” known as “ISIS” uses the internet power and social media for their online
propaganda campaign to recruit many foreign fighters (Roser, Nagdy & Ritchie, 2018).
According to Mohd (2016), ISIS is mostly targeting Malaysian students from schools, colleges,
and universities because they are young and ignorant. They are used for the war as ISIS fighter in
the country like Syria. Therefore, the access to these terrorist websites and videos need to be
restricted to prevent the young generation of Malaysia from involving themselves in terrorisms.
After all, the act of terrors can affect the national security of the country. Consequently, it is
important to have internet censorship in strengthening the security of the country.
In conclusion, Malaysia practices internet censorship to monitor online scams, prevent
people from viewing harmful or sensitive content and strengthen the security of the country.
According to Petra (2012), the three main purposes of internet censorship are politics and power,
security and social norms and morals. Every country has its own policy in keeping their country
safe by practicing it. Malaysia is a multiracial country. Furthermore, it has its own policy for the
equality of the people from different races, cultures and religions without any discriminations by
the Federal Constitution of Malaysia stated in Article 8 “The principle equality of all citizens
before the law” (Jayasooria, 2018). As a result, it is important to filter the contents over the
internet in order to prevent any uproars in the country. Hence, the best quote to describe the
internet censorship is “Prevention is better than cure” by Desiderius Erasmus. The internet is a
huge platform that contains many types of information without any restrictions on it. It is a huge
risk not to practice internet censorship in this modern era because people can be easily
influenced by the information on the internet.
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