Why the Star report is Bad for Bloggers

At first I wanted to write a serious post. Really serious. However I doubt that anyone really wants to read that kind of self-important tosh, so if I sound flippant, it's the negative feedback system in play. Truth is, I really want people to hear what I have to say: That Star article marks a turning point for bloggers in Malaysia. Tread carefully, the future's before us.

A little background: Malaysian bloggers rejoiced when blogging was highlighted in the newspapers recently. By in large it was a positive article, but wait. The shadow it casts is long and dark.

Suddenly, a blogger finds herself pulled (as it were) by the short and curlies. Somebody wrote to her: "I was flabbergasted to discover your blog contained profanities and unsuitable materials for children". Minishorts acknowledged this, and sort of apologised, in the economical sense that Minishorts would apologise for being herself. She said she would from now on put up a great big sign on her front page saying "Immature People Who Tell On Us To Parents Are NOT Welcome, Go Away". Well, she didn't really, she was much more polite than that, but you get the drift.

Some said she responded to criticism and fixed a problem. Others may say she allowed her rights to be compromised. Disagree? Stay with me.

I remember once, there was a young lady who posted an article about how a jewellry shop in KL screwed up a job to do something to her ring or something (make it smaller, I think). I don't have a link to that article because she took it down after the owner threatened her with a lawsuit. (I also don't have her blog, because my memory is like... wait, what's it called again?)

Now, she definitely allowed herself to get pushed around a bit, mainly because she thought shoving would be worse for her. She compromised.

Listen to me here: A strength of the Internet is that anybody is allowed to say whatever they want, however they want. Having access to this net of bits and bytes gives you unlimited and widespread freedom of speech.

(Technically, this is not true. Although the Malaysian Constitution allows freedom of speech (article 10), it has to be within the law (article 10 (2)), and the law actually says you can't publish bad stuff (Communications and Multimedia Act 1998 article 211). You've gotta love such well-defined phrases like "intent to annoy, abuse, threaten or harass". I'm not a lawyer, but I can see that this allows the country to protect its citizens against people who publish bad stuff on the internet. )

That strength I wrote about above? I can see some people saying that it's actually a weakness.

But who cares what you say if they're not listening? The only people who used to listen to Malaysan bloggers were Malysian bloggers. We just want to say what we want to say, how we want to say it.

This sort of freedom enables people to loudly declare how much they love each other; it allowed an experimenter to share his results; Religion can be discussed, so can politics, whether seriously or humourously. Oh yeah, there's sex too.

Now, however, more people are listening. Praise the press, blame the press.

Paradoxically, the more people that listen, the less that they want to hear. Interests are intersections, but dislikes are unions. It only takes one person find something offensive to make a whole blog offensive.

Some people ignore when they see something they don't like. Some write to the editors. And some come to your house, knock on your door, and make you feel special.

You cannot blame the Government. They exist to serve and protect. When people complain, they have to be seen to be doing something about it.

But what is "something"? Stronger libel laws that enable large companies to shut up an individual? Greater monitoring, and the publication of a hot-list of blogs with unsuitable keywords? Censorship, and I'm talking about the no-holds-barred, state-sponsored, you-couldn't-stick-a-barn-door-over-it censorship?

Here's my guess. Two things will happen to Malaysian bloggers in the next eighteen months:

1. Bloggers will go underground: They will become anonymous and will severely delink from their real-world selves. All you self-photo bloggers out there, whore no more.
2. Bloggers will strongly self-censor: People self-censor, but they mainly base it on their own principles. I'm talking about the kind of self-censorship where you go, "Hey, is somebody out there with a big stick going to be upset at what I write?".

Either way, it's a compromise. You limit your ablity to say what you want, how you want it. It starts with warnings, it goes on to 'toning down' and before you know it, you don't really say what you mean. It heralds the gradual eradication of your rights as a citizen of the world.

Malaysian bloggers, beware.

(Or maybe we don't have to. Maybe this post is a result of too much caffiene, not enough sleep, and a tendency to feel self-righteous. Flame me, my asbestos suit is on.)

By the way, Brand New Malaysian also has a post on the subject of what happens when bloggers become well-known, but his is on a more individual level.