{"id":509,"date":"2007-04-05T23:32:45","date_gmt":"2007-04-06T04:32:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/archives\/2007\/04\/05\/blogger-registration-or-becoming-an-international-laughing-stock"},"modified":"2007-04-06T07:30:44","modified_gmt":"2007-04-06T12:30:44","slug":"blogger-registration-or-becoming-an-international-laughing-stock","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/archives\/2007\/04\/05\/blogger-registration-or-becoming-an-international-laughing-stock","title":{"rendered":"Blogger registration, or becoming an international laughing stock?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Datuk Shaziman Abu Mansor, is without a doubt, someone who cannot understand the dynamics of the Internet. And he serves as the Deputy Engery, Water and Communications Minister in Malaysia. Why, you ask?<\/p>\n<p>He wants <a href=\"http:\/\/star-techcentral.com\/tech\/story.asp?file=\/2007\/4\/5\/technology\/20070405153418&amp;sec=technology\">bloggers to register with the authorities<\/a>, to prevent the spread of &#8220;negative or malicious content&#8221;. He hasn&#8217;t defined the difference of a blog being hosted in Malaysia (I guess this will be a hit for web hosting companies there) or just the ones with the <em>.my <\/em>suffix, though he seems to be aiming for the latter. Just like in Australia, to get a .com.my you need a company backing that up &#8211; why would a company host malicious blogs? A web hosting company, is of course, exempt from whatever it is they host.<\/p>\n<p>Blogs, are the hype du jour. You don&#8217;t need one to spread malicious or anti-government propoganda. People were blogging, long before blogging software existed &#8211; early Internet adopters, just wrote in regular HTML. If a blog is meant to tell what you&#8217;re doing or going to do, does anyone remember finger and the Unix .plan file? Blogs might have just made the barrier to entry for publishing lower (but one can argue that, so has Microsoft FrontPage).<\/p>\n<p>The Johor Baru MP, Datuk Shahrir Abdul Samad thinks, &#8220;that the problem was also about inflammatory comments by unidentified visitors to the blogs.&#8221; You can&#8217;t control what commenters say, and if you don&#8217;t exert any editing right over comments (quite unlike Jeff Ooi), you&#8217;re protected by the law. If you&#8217;re going to run a political forum, exert no editorial content over the comments, and you&#8217;re a &#8220;saved by the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cmc.gov.my\/the_law\/ViewAct.asp?cc=31478525&amp;lg=e&amp;arid=900722\">Communications &amp; Multimedia Act 1998<\/a>&#8221; common carrier.<\/p>\n<p>Back in the heyday (&#8217;98), the government did say, no-censorship on the Internet. If people are going to move to hosting blogs overseas, this will be a very dark day for Malaysian web hosters (so I suggest, they stand up, together and submit to the government or relevant bodies, how silly this idea is). Marina Mahathir (Dr. Mahathir, ex-Prime Minister&#8217;s, daughter) has always mention this would make Malaysia look ridiculous.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s also ironic, now that Kathy Sierra has received death threats, people are talking about a bloggers code of conduct, policing the blogs, and so forth. If you listen to Adam Curry&#8217;s daily source code, he&#8217;s got some interesting recent episodes (DSC576,575, possibly 574) about how wanting to register or police is really silly. We&#8217;re all humans, and we&#8217;ve all got our ugly sides. The Internet as a whole is just a new medium, that a lot of politicians or people in high ranking places don&#8217;t seem to understand.<\/p>\n<p>Why does this matter to me? Its not like I&#8217;m running a political website. But I do have interests in the freedom of the Malaysian Internet &#8211; those of you that receive email from me, realize it usually comes from a <em>.com.my<\/em> address, something I&#8217;ve not bothered (or wanted to, really) change for years. I also have servers sitting in Malaysian data centers (bandwidth, unlimited, and comparatively cheaper than hosting in Australia).<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.eff.org\/br\/\"><br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.eff.org\/br\/br.gif?resize=112%2C76\" alt=\"Join the Blue Ribbon Online Free Speech Campaign\" align=\"middle\" border=\"1\" height=\"76\" width=\"112\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><br \/>\nJoin the Blue Ribbon Online Free Speech Campaign!<\/a><\/p>\n<p>In conclusion, it should be noted that I refuse to register anything, and if the government chooses to be silly, I will be moving my interests elsewhere.<\/p>\n<p>Technorati Tags: <a href=\"http:\/\/technorati.com\/tag\/bloggers\" class=\"performancingtags\" rel=\"tag\">bloggers<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/technorati.com\/tag\/blog\" class=\"performancingtags\" rel=\"tag\">blog<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/technorati.com\/tag\/registration\" class=\"performancingtags\" rel=\"tag\">registration<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/technorati.com\/tag\/malaysia\" class=\"performancingtags\" rel=\"tag\">malaysia<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/technorati.com\/tag\/silly\" class=\"performancingtags\" rel=\"tag\">silly<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/technorati.com\/tag\/free%20speech\" class=\"performancingtags\" rel=\"tag\">free speech<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/technorati.com\/tag\/online%20censorship\" class=\"performancingtags\" rel=\"tag\">online censorship<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/technorati.com\/tag\/stop%20internet%20censorship\" class=\"performancingtags\" rel=\"tag\">stop internet censorship<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/technorati.com\/tag\/free%20speech%20for%20all\" class=\"performancingtags\" rel=\"tag\">free speech for all<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/technorati.com\/tag\/web%20hosters\" class=\"performancingtags\" rel=\"tag\">web hosters<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/technorati.com\/tag\/.my\" class=\"performancingtags\" rel=\"tag\">.my<\/a><\/p>\n<div class=\"sharedaddy sd-sharing-enabled\"><div class=\"robots-nocontent sd-block sd-social sd-social-icon-text sd-sharing\"><h3 class=\"sd-title\">Share this:<\/h3><div class=\"sd-content\"><ul><li class=\"share-email\"><a rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" data-shared=\"\" class=\"share-email sd-button share-icon\" href=\"mailto:?subject=%5BShared%20Post%5D%20Blogger%20registration%2C%20or%20becoming%20an%20international%20laughing%20stock%3F&body=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bytebot.net%2Fblog%2Farchives%2F2007%2F04%2F05%2Fblogger-registration-or-becoming-an-international-laughing-stock&share=email\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Click to email a link to a friend\" data-email-share-error-title=\"Do you have email set up?\" data-email-share-error-text=\"If you&#039;re having problems sharing via email, you might not have email set up for your browser. You may need to create a new email yourself.\" data-email-share-nonce=\"668757e84d\" data-email-share-track-url=\"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/archives\/2007\/04\/05\/blogger-registration-or-becoming-an-international-laughing-stock?share=email\"><span>Email<\/span><\/a><\/li><li class=\"share-facebook\"><a rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" data-shared=\"sharing-facebook-509\" class=\"share-facebook sd-button share-icon\" href=\"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/archives\/2007\/04\/05\/blogger-registration-or-becoming-an-international-laughing-stock?share=facebook\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Click to share on Facebook\" ><span>Facebook<\/span><\/a><\/li><li class=\"share-linkedin\"><a rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" data-shared=\"sharing-linkedin-509\" class=\"share-linkedin sd-button share-icon\" href=\"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/archives\/2007\/04\/05\/blogger-registration-or-becoming-an-international-laughing-stock?share=linkedin\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Click to share on LinkedIn\" ><span>LinkedIn<\/span><\/a><\/li><li class=\"share-twitter\"><a rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" data-shared=\"sharing-twitter-509\" class=\"share-twitter sd-button share-icon\" href=\"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/archives\/2007\/04\/05\/blogger-registration-or-becoming-an-international-laughing-stock?share=twitter\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Click to share on Twitter\" ><span>Twitter<\/span><\/a><\/li><li class=\"share-end\"><\/li><\/ul><\/div><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Datuk Shaziman Abu Mansor, is without a doubt, someone who cannot understand the dynamics of the Internet. And he serves as the Deputy Engery, Water and Communications Minister in Malaysia. Why, you ask? He wants bloggers to register with the authorities, to prevent the spread of &#8220;negative or malicious content&#8221;. He hasn&#8217;t defined the difference [&hellip;]<\/p>\n<div class=\"sharedaddy sd-sharing-enabled\"><div class=\"robots-nocontent sd-block sd-social sd-social-icon-text sd-sharing\"><h3 class=\"sd-title\">Share this:<\/h3><div class=\"sd-content\"><ul><li class=\"share-email\"><a rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" data-shared=\"\" class=\"share-email sd-button share-icon\" href=\"mailto:?subject=%5BShared%20Post%5D%20Blogger%20registration%2C%20or%20becoming%20an%20international%20laughing%20stock%3F&body=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bytebot.net%2Fblog%2Farchives%2F2007%2F04%2F05%2Fblogger-registration-or-becoming-an-international-laughing-stock&share=email\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Click to email a link to a friend\" data-email-share-error-title=\"Do you have email set up?\" data-email-share-error-text=\"If you&#039;re having problems sharing via email, you might not have email set up for your browser. You may need to create a new email yourself.\" data-email-share-nonce=\"668757e84d\" data-email-share-track-url=\"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/archives\/2007\/04\/05\/blogger-registration-or-becoming-an-international-laughing-stock?share=email\"><span>Email<\/span><\/a><\/li><li class=\"share-facebook\"><a rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" data-shared=\"sharing-facebook-509\" class=\"share-facebook sd-button share-icon\" href=\"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/archives\/2007\/04\/05\/blogger-registration-or-becoming-an-international-laughing-stock?share=facebook\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Click to share on Facebook\" ><span>Facebook<\/span><\/a><\/li><li class=\"share-linkedin\"><a rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" data-shared=\"sharing-linkedin-509\" class=\"share-linkedin sd-button share-icon\" href=\"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/archives\/2007\/04\/05\/blogger-registration-or-becoming-an-international-laughing-stock?share=linkedin\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Click to share on LinkedIn\" ><span>LinkedIn<\/span><\/a><\/li><li class=\"share-twitter\"><a rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" data-shared=\"sharing-twitter-509\" class=\"share-twitter sd-button share-icon\" href=\"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/archives\/2007\/04\/05\/blogger-registration-or-becoming-an-international-laughing-stock?share=twitter\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Click to share on Twitter\" ><span>Twitter<\/span><\/a><\/li><li class=\"share-end\"><\/li><\/ul><\/div><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_options":[]},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4vJD-8d","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":858,"url":"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/archives\/2008\/07\/15\/malaysia-airlines-embraces-the-blogosphere","url_meta":{"origin":509,"position":0},"title":"Malaysia Airlines embraces the blogosphere","date":"15\/7\/2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Anyone that knows me, knows that I am not a big fan of Malaysia Airlines. However, I have to hand it to them, with their new blog, titled Living Malaysian Hospitality (eating, breathing, sleeping MH; MH, their airline code, is now being themed as Malaysian Hospitality, something I think is\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;General&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1449,"url":"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/archives\/2009\/04\/18\/podcast-hosting-options","url_meta":{"origin":509,"position":1},"title":"Podcast hosting options?","date":"18\/4\/2009","format":false,"excerpt":"I've been looking around to find a host for podcasts, while toying with the idea of hosting it in Malaysia on my box as well. Self hosting has the advantage that its free, but at the same time, it may not be as fast for others outside the country, and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;General&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2495,"url":"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/archives\/2012\/09\/15\/malaysian-censorship-doesnt-cross-borders-but-what-if-youre-a-malaysian-startup","url_meta":{"origin":509,"position":2},"title":"Malaysian censorship doesn&#8217;t cross borders but what if you&#8217;re a Malaysian startup?","date":"15\/9\/2012","format":false,"excerpt":"The White House did ask YouTube to check if there was a violation of terms of service\u00a0for the recent video that's causing the Muslim world to go up in storm. It seems like there isn't, and the video continues to stay up. Good on Google, good on YouTube, and here's\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;General&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2518,"url":"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/archives\/2012\/09\/28\/tax-incentives-for-angel-investors-in-malaysia","url_meta":{"origin":509,"position":3},"title":"Tax incentives for angel investors in Malaysia","date":"28\/9\/2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Today there were some incentives for angel investors announced in Malaysia as part of Budget 2013. Who qualifies as an angel investor? Your annual income must exceed RM180,000 per annum and you must be a tax resident to qualify for the deduction. What do you get? Total investment as an\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Business&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2544,"url":"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/archives\/2012\/10\/20\/how-to-insult-this-blog","url_meta":{"origin":509,"position":4},"title":"How to insult this blog","date":"20\/10\/2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Asking to buy advertising with a pitch such as: Therefore I\u2019m interested in buying advertisement space (my budget is unlimited). Or worse, the following: I would like to get an article on your blog about [REDACTED]. For this we would like to offer you 200 RM. We are a [REDACTED]\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;General&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2867,"url":"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/archives\/2014\/02\/04\/bitcoin-exchanges-cant-work-in-malaysia","url_meta":{"origin":509,"position":5},"title":"Bitcoin Exchanges can&#8217;t work in Malaysia","date":"4\/2\/2014","format":false,"excerpt":"News today: Genneva (gold trading company, launched by former Prime Minister Mahathir) Malaysia director charged with accepting deposits without a license. So if you're thinking of a Bitcoin exchange in Malaysia, think again. Bank Negara Malaysia obviously doesn't think much of Bitcoin. How will you accept deposits without a license?\u00a0\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Business&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/509"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=509"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/509\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=509"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=509"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=509"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}