Haris Ibrahim posted in People’s Parliament on Friday how ‘If you can’t kill the news, silence the messenger’.
Haris wrote that his informant had the following to say about the recent inaccessibility of Malaysia Today website (of Raja Petra Kamarudin fame).
His informant told him: “Had dinner with an Umno snitch last week. He warned me this was going to happen. He said that Malaysiakini was not the real target of MCMC, but Malaysia Today, as there are people in government who are shitting bricks about what RPK is going to reveal through his series of videos starting 10th September. Also, given the all-important impending Bagan Pinang by-election, the last thing they want is RPK raking up all the dirt on the government and on Umno. They’re looking for any excuse to justify blocking certain news portals and blogs. But if they can’t find any excuse, they’re going to do it on the quiet???.
Haris revealed that he had tried to get into Malaysiakini and could not, although he got into Malaysian Insider and Star Online with relative ease. Finally he managed to get into both M-Today and mKini, but it took an awfully long time. And again, comparatively he got into Malaysian Insider and Star Online almost instantaneously.
Haris’ informant affirmed that the Malaysian authorities had the capacity to block websites on the quiet, and warned that the “clampdown on the Internet may just be starting. And that, dumbo, may be a sign of other things to come.???
Meanwhile, Hartal MSM had this posting below in their blog.
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By Eyes Wide Open
Try to access this website: www.malingsia.com
Chances are, if you’re using Streamyx or any other GLC ISP, you can’t.
Now try accessing Malaysia Today.
Chances are, if you’re accessing from within Malaysia, you can’t either. Or at best, you can after several tries or hours.
Now try accessing Playboy here.
(This is strictly for experimental purposes! HartalMSM does not endorse nor promote pornography in any form at all!)
No problem, eh!
Now this is extremely odd.
Rais’ proposed Green Dam Internet filter was supposed to protect Malaysian Internet users from ‘child pornography’. But he reluctantly backed down amidst public outcry and the Prime Minister’s assurance that there will be no Internet censorship.
But now we have this odd issues with accessing certain politically flavoured websites, but websites of other flavours are freely accessible.
Why? Well, in the absence of official confirmation and verification, we’ll just have to put on our thinking caps.
Of course, we all know why Malaysia Today is blocked. It’s because of the 18- page Cabinet paper proving that the Cabinet turned a blind eye to the financial shenanigans of the PKFZ and endorsed the massive cost over-runs.
But why block Malingsia.com? What is so wrong about this website that it warrants censorship over porn?
To continue reading …
(EWO is a Hartal MSM team member)