Well, it’s official… the Malaysian Communication and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) has ordered the 19 Internet service providers (ISPs) in the country to block the Malaysia-Today website [more on Thestar]
When will the government learn that oppression is never the best way to win support? With Anwar’s threat to seize control looming near, the BN government should take every right measures to win back the people’s support… but bizarrely they are trying to harm their reputation further instead by committing the obvious fault.
You can still access Malaysia-Today via the mirror site or follow the steps by Crankshaft to bypass the ISP block.
The Pakatan Rakyat has just launched a campaign to boycott Utusan Malaysia and Mingguan Malaysia for their unfair reporting and racial sentiment.
It was a bizarre move by Pakatan… for all this while they are fighting for freedom of speech, and now they are, asking people to boycott the papers for their biasness. Such an irony.
I do read Utusan occasionally, and I know how pro-BN and racial biased they could be when reporting certain issues… but that doesn’t mean that they are liars.
Chinese papers are often bias when reporting some racial issues too… Hishammudin’s keris wielding for example was widely criticised in Chinese papers, while the Malay papers were more protective towards the same news.
Sometimes, there is no absolute answer to right or wrong in certain matters… it’s just about sharing different point of views, which is not really a bad thing for better understanding among Malaysians.
Besides, the blogosphere are more biased in favour of Pakatan than the mainstream media for BN… we are the worst when it comes to biasness. So, should BN supporters launch a boycott campaign against the bloggers in return?
So much so for freedom of speech.
Here comes the real heavyweight… Mahathir is now a blogger.
The blog has garnered almost 300,000 visitors in just 7 days, pretty amazing.
Umno Youth deputy chief Khairy Jamaluddin has written to dispute Malaysiakini’s reports that there was a recount of votes on polling night of March 8 in the Rembau parliamentary constituency where he won by 5,726.
Malaysiakini has apologised regarding this matter… [Malaysiakini]
On election night, we were informed by PKR candidate Badrul Hisham Shaharin that he was told by an EC official that there would be a recount.
Our story on that night reflected this. In addition, on March 11 Badrul repeated that there was a recount at a press conference and this was reported by not only Malaysiakini but also a number of other newspapers.
However, we have come to know now that such a recount did not take place. As such, we would like to apologise to Khairy Jamaluddin for publishing that assertion in our subsequent stories.
I wonder if Badrul is ready to apologise regarding this mistake too.
BN leaders are joining the blog-wagon as if it’s a gold mine. Here comes the latest… Muhammad Muhd Taib.
Well, he is the Umno information chief after all, he needs to lead the cyber-evolution for the party. However, a blog is just a medium to share thoughts and information; it doesn’t help if the politicians are not doing their best to make the country a better place.
Chua Soi Lek the blogger.
The Chinese writings are unnecessary, really… if we want to build a Malaysia for all Malaysians, at least show some courtesy to write in a language that everyone can understand. I know, the blog provides English version of the Chinese articles as well… but why not just in English, or perhaps in BM instead?
Former Selangor MB, Dr Mohamad Khir Toyo, has launched his own blog.
I have read some sarcastic comments on other blogs about Khir’s motive. The fact that he is going to moderate the comments at the blog is not going to be welcomed by the public…
I don’t blame him for that though; some Malaysians are immaturely abusing the freedom of speech… and considering his dent reputation among anti-BN supporters, his blog would be flooded with pointless verbal abuse, which probably deserves some moderation.
I hope that he won’t be stupid enough to block proper comments which share different point of views, and that he would share his real thoughts instead of making it solely for propaganda purpose.
Set the agendas and motives aside… it should be a welcome move to see political leaders expressing their thoughts directly to the public and to receive feedback. Give him a chance shall we?
Malaysiakini goes free for one week (March 4-10) to allow non-subscribers to read their (full) news without having to log in. Existing subscribers will be compensated with one additional week to the subscription period.
Quoted from editor-in-chief Steven Gan, “Democracy is about voters acquiring sufficient knowledge to make an informed choice. By making Malaysiakini available to all, we want to play our part in helping Malaysians exercise their democratic right.” [Malaysiakini]
Frankly, the media biasness for the past couple of weeks are really annoying. It’s a noble act from Malaysiakini to try and balance the election news and information, kudos for that.
