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27th May, 2008
KUALA LUMPUR: The government has no plan to set up a special body to monitor irresponsible blogs and bloggers, said Deputy Energy, Water and Communications Minister Datuk Joseph Salang Gandum yesterday.
He said that was because the ministry via the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) had sufficient legal provisions to take action against the irresponsible lot.
“The MCMC can and will take legal action against the owners, moderators or writers of the blog who use the internet as a platform to disseminate lies and slander, if the investigation showed that they had violated the law,” he said in reply to Senator Sharifah Azizah Syed Zain during question time at the Dewan Negara sitting, here yesterday.
Joseph Salang said the Communications and Multimedia Act 1998 had also provided a clear prohibition in the publication of content which is indecent, obscene, false, menacing or offensive in character with intent to annoy, abuse or harass any person as practised by certain bloggers in this country.
He said, several other laws could also be used to prevent online crimes including the Sedition Act 1848, Penal Code, Copyrights Act, Direct Sales Act 1993, Companies Act 1965, Banking and Financial Institutions Act 1989 and Securities Industry Act 1983.
“Apart from the MCMC, the other authorities such as the police, the Companies Commission, National Bank, Securities Commission as well as the Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs Ministry, can also take action against these blogs,” he said.
“Those who were victimised by the blogger should lodge a report to the MCMC, so that a probe could be initiated and the findings could be used for prosecution,” he said.
To date, he said a total of 22 websites and blogs had been probed for producing indecent, obscene, false, menacing and offensive contents.
However, he said, most of the probing efforts faced difficulties because the bloggers had used foreign or international internet platforms.
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