PETALING JAYA, April 2 — Malaysians need not fear expressing dissent on social media but should take care that their Facebook posts and tweets are not unlawful, a forum here heard today.
Acknowledging the air of uncertainty following the continued police action against social media users, panellist Eric Paulsen of Lawyers for Liberty said such concern was not reflective of the liberties Malaysians still enjoyed.
“Malaysia is not that bad until you cannot say anything about the government… we are not like China where Facebook is totally banned.
“But we should be cautious about our action because although there is no proper SOP (standard operating procedure) to deal with matters; as such, we must be responsible,” he said at the talk entitled “WATCH ME, WATCH ME: Who’s really watching you on the Internet?” here.
Another panellist, tech writer Keith Rozario, warned that Malaysian authorities had the ability and resources to track individuals through the Internet.
Rozario is also the writer who previously released documents he insisted was evidence that Putrajaya had purchased spyware from Hacking Team and accused a minister of lying in her denial.
“You might think that you are out of the picture after posting something bad or wrong about the government, but there are other means like Waze, Google and other platforms that the government can use to find you,” he said.
He also explained that Putrajaya need not even go to such extent to identify and track users, saying that this could even be done with networking equipment provided by local Internet service providers.
