KUALA LUMPUR, 9 Nov 2009: Bloggers have been urged to stop spreading lies in their writings, particularly on social and political issues, as they can create controversy and damage the government’s reputation.
Broadcasting director-general Datuk Ibrahim Yahya, himself a blogger, said bloggers should act as intermediaries when presenting issues to society.
“Some bloggers write nonsensical things that are far from the truth, and create issues which are not true.
“It is difficult to gauge the extent of the truth in blog writings as the writers always hide behind pen names,” he said today at a dialogue session titled Blog: Lies or Reality.
Ibrahim said although bloggers had the freedom to write, they should always strive for a positive outcome and consider racial sensitivities.
Blogger Syed Imran Alsagoff, who goes by the moniker Kuda Ranggi, said like print and electronic media journalists, bloggers should also be exposed to journalism ethics and laws like the Internal Security Act (ISA) and the Offical Secrets Act (OSA).
“Bloggers who do not have deep understanding of the provisions of the acts and journalism ethics may resort to writing lies,” he claimed.
Syed Imran, a former Bernama editor, claimed that blogs on political issues tended to lie and degrade the dignity of others. — Bernama
Gopal Raj Kumar says
Syed Imran may be correct in his assumptions about bloggers. They remain assumptions until he is able to prove that what bloggers write and publish are lies.
We blog. We write, we publish but we do not adhere to the well hackneyed phrase “publish and be damned”. We are open to being served process if anything we publish is believd to be defamatory, false or misleading.
Now not all Malaysian blogs necessarily fall into the same category as ourselves. We do not seek the charity and hand outs of others to survive. Nor do we wilfully and for no good reason other than for political bias edit or censor comments from our blogs.
We do not publish the many comments we receive particularly from Malaysians because of the content and quality of their comments. But we cannot be held responsible for the deficiencies in others in this regard.
We blog and we are BIG.
Gopal Raj Kumar
Azizi Khan says
Let me get this perfectly clear. According to Datuk Ibrahim Yahya, the government has never, ever lied to the public? Since independence, the past and present government has never misled, lied, intended to lie, or intended to misead the public in any form — ever?
If so, the Malaysian government must be the cleanest government in the world. Oh wait, corruption is at an all-time high. Scandals like PKFZ are revealed by responsible journalists on a daily basis.
So what if bloggers write what we hear? Are you afraid of us? If you are afraid — and so you should be — tell the truth. But that would be too much to ask of any government.
Truth of the matter is, the Malaysian government has had the luxury of manipulating media for far too long. Now with online media and bloggers reporting what they see and hear, people like Datuk Ibrahim Yahya are wetting themselves because they are scared of being caught with their pants down.
Think about it this way. If one person writes something bad about the government, we can dismiss it as heresay. If a whole lot of people from every walk of life talk about it, each chipping in their bit of information… well sir, you have a scandal on your hands.