Slashdot Mirror
New Cyberbullying Evidence Rules May Go Too Far
An anonymous reader writes "The Malaysian Government has recently passed an amendment to their Evidence Act that has been designed to hold cyber bullies accountable for their malicious tirades on blogs or Facebook Walls. Unfortunately, the amendment has been worded such that 'If your name, photograph or pseudonym appears on any publication depicting yourself as the author, you are deemed to have published the content' and 'If a posting comes from your Internet or phone account, you are deemed to be the publisher unless the contrary is proved.' What these raft of amendments have done is shifted the burden of proof to the accused. One is considered guilty until proven innocent. Even the simple act of posting an offending message on a friend's Facebook Wall could get that friend, and not the original poster, into trouble with this law. Although the amendments were initiated by good intentions, a conspiracist can see how easily this law can be misused to curb dissent in Malaysia."
Indeed, so the solution is to post something defamatory about the king using a picture and the name of one of the politicians or lawlords who passed this bill, then they'll be able to see the obvious flaw in their plan.
Please consider this account deleted, I just can't be bothered with the spam anymore.
I still don't get why people seem to insist on different laws for "cyber" something versus "in real life" something. Bullying is bullying. Threats are threats. Adjust your existing laws accordingly, but they should cover both things the same way.
For anybody who wants a basic overview of Malay law regarding these matters, there's an issue of the Malayan Law Journal (actually an article supplement) that covers this in language easily understood by the layperson (and it's also in English, to boot). The PDF is located here: http://jeraldgomez.com/pdf/7cd40a1889d4539feffda786372ff33b.pdf and I would point you to page 3 (page 4 of the PDF).
Basically, they are based on English Common Law, and signed the UDHR, but have a history of legislation that allows detention without trial, originally designed to combat communism.
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
That's Thailand, but don't let that put you off avoiding Malaysia as a holiday destination. Malaysia has Islam has its state religion, but claims to offer freedom of religion. Now, as you can imagine I don't agree with Islam, yet I'm sanguine on the whole thing. Sure, I spent the best part of a day nailed to a tree for these people, and they then go off following some schizophrenic local warlord. Sorry, that seems really ungrateful to me, and don't get me started on those Mormons and their crazy notion that they'll one day become space gods.
They have freedom of religion, yet by law Malaysians of a certain ethnic original are automatically Muslims. Under some pretty common interpretations of Islam, to leave Islam is to be invite death. Yes, great freedom of religion there. Next time I come to Earth I'll sure want a nice holiday before I get back to work. I know Thailand and Malaysia are pretty low on the list of places I'd like to visit, and so they should be for anyone not wanting their money to support these guys who make my old neighbors in Nazareth (you know who you are!) seem progressive by comparison.
They tend to forget these things in their tourism adverts. To be fair, the U.S. rarely mentions the genital groping TSA when looking for tourists, and they rarely publicize the notion of "constitution free zones" wherever Bush/Obama decide that discarding freedom in the face of a marginal and unlikely threat is the right thing to do. Perhaps Spain is where I'll head to. Good food (the olives in Heaven are disappointing) and wines, and the women are exceptional if you can stand the tempers.
JC
That's not a bug, it's a feature.
Replace "you" with "politician with an axe to grind" and "lawlord" with "dissident"