Now, Why Would You Want To Block Internet Sites?

I don't believe it but it's happening. The Malaysian Authorities have actually gotten Internet Service Providers to block one internet blog-cum-website because of its alleged offensive content. Without much foresight, the service provider actually blocked the domain, and in so doing, not only revealed its stupidity to international ridicule, but also exposing the lack of knowledge among the powers that control one of the leading authorities on Malaysia's future in the cyberworld.

The ban, which raised furore in cyberspace, has spilled into the streets to become topics of conversation at sidewalk cafes and hawkerstalls.

If the aim was to deny access to the said site by the self-styled moral guardians so that those who did not know what it was - and therefore would not be exposed to the site's allegedly vile content - then the authorities had failed miserably.

What it succeeded, though, was to make fools of its board of directors and how little they knew about their jobs and the internet. What the ban did was to actually trigger much more publicity on the site and increased traffic to it - not to mention of course, revealing 101 ways how you cannot ban access to any internet site unless you pull out the transmission lines with which you are connected to the world. And in a small way, the ban revealed why such as an important authority that regulates cyberspace laws should have people who are tech-savvy and internet-literate work there so that they would not continue to turn the Government's faces pink in disgrace.

If you have forgotten, several countries had tried the same trick of banning internet sites. Years ago Thailand tried on Youtube and failed. Pakistan tried, too, with some success - especially in raising more furore among the international community on the country. Of course Myanmar did, and succeeded, quite disgustfully, when it actually pulled the plug out of the wall. And as sure as pop-ups, some crazy tech-illiterate person/s or organisations would forget all these silliness some years down the line and try the same trick again so that you and I could get a good laugh.

Laughs aside, the bigger worry now is not how to wipe the embarrassment off the faces of those responsible for the ban but how to justify the actions of the MCMC, the authority which ordered the ISP Steamyx to deny user access to the site Malaysia Today.

What should keep the decision maker sleepless now is how to explain its own contravention of the Bill of Guarantees of the Malaysian Multimedia Supercorridor which assures non-censorship of the internet, among others.

And I heard rumblings from one online newspaper that the bloggers are now in the cross-hairs. Just don't you try banning Blogger...