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Permalink Reply by Yoon-Kit Yong on July 26, 2010 at 10:12am

Dr Mahathir's Views On Filtering Internet Smut Gets Thumbs Up From Rais


July 25, 2010 17:44 PM

http://www.bernama.com/bernama/v5/newsindex.php?id=516293

BATU PAHAT, July 25 (Bernama) -- The Information Communication and Culture Ministry welcomes former prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad views on the need to filter pornography on the Internet, said its minister Datuk Seri Utama Dr Rais Yatim.

"I greatly welcome Tun's (Mahathir's) views because we appear to be alone in voicing out against this negative influence. If more leaders voice out against pornography, the easier it will be for us to tackle this issue.

"There are certain quarters who have doubts about legal provisions to tackle the menace. Actually, we have Section 265 of the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Comission Act to handle this," he told reporters after attending a memorial organised by the National Archives for the late Tun Hussein Onn (Malaysia's third prime minster) at Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia (UTHM) here Sunday.

Also present were Tun Hussein's widow, Tun Suhailah Tan Sri Mohamed Noah Omar, Rais' wife Datin Seri Masnah Rais, National Archivs director-general Datuk Sidek Jamil and UTHM vice chancellor, Prof. Datuk Dr Mohd Noh Dalimin.

The media recently reported Dr Mahathir as saying that he was becoming increasingly worried about the spread of smut on the Internet and that he felt it should be filtered as it was contributing to the increase in sexual crimes in the country.

Rais said it was still too early to come up with a mechanism to block pornography on the Internet, but nevertheless, discussions in an objective manner would be carried to tackle the problem so that it was not misinterpreted as censoring the Internet.

He said if the source of pornography was from within the country, the authorities could act but at the moment could do very little to prevent its spread if the source was from overseas.

"The is a need for an internal mechanism to check the spread of pornography on the Internet. At the same time, parents too need to do their part to protect children from this scourge," he added.

-- BERNAMA

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Permalink Reply by Raj Kumar Kunhiraman on September 1, 2010 at 9:45am

I agree with Tun's sentiments on this issue. There are numerous online resources on child online safety but what is missing is the proactive approach to educating children and filtering pornography on the internet. On of the ways is to work with MOE to deliver awareness messages to school children and also the teachers.Governments should seriously consider adopting internet filtering tool and implement at ISP level. These are just my thoughts.

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Permalink Reply by Husyairi Harunarashid on April 30, 2011 at 4:12am

Academically, one can argue filtering at the ISP level may constitute as a form of censorship, no? I believe communities and governments all over the world are struggling to contain the easy access to pornographic material via the net. In the light of the successes of the social media platform, it is hard to see how traditional forms of control (legislation, "education campaigns" that leans on negative messaging - "tak mau, tak nak, no", and so forth) would make a whole lot of difference.

 

Allow me to take parallels in narcotics and drug addiction (to a certain extent, cigarette smoking) as an example. We in the medical profession have started to move away from the Abstinence Model to a Harm Reduction Model - as the question is more of a behavioral complexity than just the availability of these substances in the "market". Of course, limiting access will help contain the rise of new addicts, but will never eliminate the problem (as demonstrated by the prohibition, there are members in the society who will exploit the steep demand-supply gradient, finding creative ways of creating supply) . This containment can only occur with a unified global participation (ie.restriction and regulation of the transport of narcotics, drug legislations and global platform for enforcement).

 

How best to tackle this? I do not have the answer. :(

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