MDA has clarified that individual bloggers need not have to
apply for licence under the new regulation. This is no cold comfort as things
may change along the way. This controversial move to regulate something that is
virtual and unlikely to be feasible without playing rough is still a mystery to
many, and keeps everyone wondering why it is found so necessary to do so.
When a blogger puts up a post in cyberspace, it is just
that, a post in cyberspace. Where is this cyberspace? It is in a way a void
that you cannot see or touch, just like a memory in a human brain, there but
not there. And the blogger making a post can be sitting here, in London,
New York, Beijing
or Tokyo, and he does not specify
that his post is to go to Sin City
or whatever place. Once in cyberspace, it is out there but not there at the
same time. Only those who want to view them will see them, with a conscious
effort of going to the url. Without making this effort, the post is transparent
to anyone and virtually not there, non existence.
How can information (slander or personal attack etc aside)
in cyberspace come under anyone or any country’s jurisdiction? And in a way,
messing up someone’s blog in cyberspace is an intrusion into someone’s private
space even if it has no privacy restriction. Why should anyone be given the
right to go out there to block someone’s url because he does not like what the
other person is writing? Put it in another way, can anyone go into a person’s
diary to do as he pleases? Or can anyone, including govt, think it is ok, it
has the right, to mess around with an individual’s diary or blog?
Every individual should have his right to write as he
pleases in his own diary or blog, as long as he does not venture into areas of libel
and scandal or posting offending comments to violate others or incite violence
against anyone. Tiok boh? And there is no law to say he cannot leave his diary
or blog about for people to assess them at their own free will.
The whole thing about licensing and regulating blogs is
crazy and vain, and only control freaks or people with an obsessive fear of
being exposed of their freakish acts or wrongdoings would be so perturbed by
it. If one has nothing to hide, why is there so much fear, so much obsession,
to want to control people speaking their minds? The doer has all the freedom to
do as he pleases, and the commentator must also has all his freedom to have his
views, contrary or conflicting views. Cannot meh? Any part that violates
whatever safeguards to an individual’s right is all there in the legal
provisions of the state.
We are just having a peep into this paranoid thinking
process, that being in the govt, one is given the god forsaken right to do what
one pleases, even in interfering with the free flow of information and speech,
in what people can see, read, hear, write or say. And even the audacity to set
standards in civility or language or way of writings. KNN, I want to write in
whatever way or style or broken English, what has that got to do with the Govt?
Boh song huh? This is indeed a funny circus.
11 comments:
RB, I think u will be the fist one to kena lor. Knn also no use mah
That isn't to say they won't ATTEMPT TO (haha...good luck to them!) regulate blogs sometime later.
I want to see if they can keep their hands off the blogs as the election draws closer.
I still advise the individuals of the cyber community to watch their six and have "Plan B" ready.
I just can't see the MDA trying to regulate sammyboy, or hardwarezone. However it would be fun to see them try :-)
They already tried their shit with the Temasek Review and failed. Anyway, let's see what happens as this shitty saga progresses toward the 2016 general elections.
YOu wonder who these PAP buggers trying to fool. Just because bloggers need not apply for license does not meant they are not subjected to their wallaby rule, and thing will not change in the future.
Remember the ERP ? At first, claim to control traffic congestion, now becomes tools for making millions for these clowns.
Will be fool to believe them.
Best of all, like HDB, MDA can easily claim to lose billions and millions of dollars by subsidizing licensing fee just in the same way HDB claim they are losing money for subsidizing flat. We know how creative can PAP be when dealing with money.
Redbean,
surely you are smart enough to look into another possibly subsidizing scam of licensing, which pap can claim to lose money again, when it is in fact free money for them .
So you can see what the PAP is up to.
If there had not been much objection from cyberspace, they would have just kept quiet and let us interpret the rulings which they want us to interpret as all inclusive and affecting many well visited sites.
And that would have been the end of the story for us. But it would then be up to the PAP to tighten the rulings around later thus affecting all bloggers. It would then be too late for us to voice any objection.
Smart move, but they could not fool those in cyberspace all the time.
The good thing about the internet is that any protest or disagreement with govt policies are immediately registered and the govt can then react. In the past they used to say no, no one said any, no protest, so the people agreed and happy with what the govt was doing. Or can pretend to be deaf frogs.
redbean:
>> any protest or disagreement with govt policies are immediately registered and the govt can then react.
Yah, but the key is HOW they react. I would say emotionally. If the dissent pisses them off, their reaction is to silence dissent, and then offer explanations that are so patently motivated reasoning i.e. justifying something aka 'rationalising' to fit some sort of DOGMA aka 'policy'.
matilah, don't ever change your photo. it's brilliant. the bugger behaved liked the biblical evil pharaoh. and he's going to be king tut soon. will be embalmed and encased too.
An enlightened govt will react, to understand the problems and unhappiness of the people.
A most enlightened one will just tell the people to shut up and do what the govt said, cause the govt is so enlightened that it knows all and what is good for the people, including what they read in the social media and main media.
Sinkies are just so fortunate and blessed.
Whew, the govt is so kind. There is no need to apply for licence to blog. Wow, wow, this calls for a celebration. The bloggers must be very grateful to be given this privilege to blog freely.
Don't forget GE2016, to vote for the govt that gives you the freedom to blog.
Thank you very much.
don't celebrate too soon. as harold wilson said one week is a long time in politics. anything can happen in the 3 years till 2016. i bet you sure same mda regulations will apply to blogs in a couple of years time. the pappies doing it step by step. just like how they increase prices, bit by bit but always increase.
Just like how they did you in with your CPF. Give them a foothold and they will stamp on you, shut you up and give you no chance even to struggle for air.
Never let that happen again. Do something in GE2016.
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