FEBRUARY, 24 — In a nation, there are three organs which act as its skeleton support. They are known as executive, legislative and judiciary. However, I recalled reading an article that reported about an unofficial fourth organ which operates in checking and reporting the dos and don’ts of these three main organs to the people. It is called media influence.
Media can be defined as the main channel where large numbers of people receive entertainment and information via television, radio, newspaper and internet (Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary). However, I will not be covering the media per say as it is too wide. Rather, I will focus on social media. Social media can be defined as websites and software programmes which are used for social networking (Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary) and this includes Facebook and Twitter.
Being an active user of Facebook myself, I have come up with the title of the article above after observing my news feed for several months last year.
My observation started with the kidnapping case of the boy in Kajang who went viral on Facebook. This alerted both police officers as well as the public of the news.
Subsequently, the boy was found by a taxi driver (Mr Hanizam) who returned him to his family without firstly, making a report to the police. He was then held behind bars pending investigation and many rakyat went berserk on his arrest, which forces the police to respond back to the public. Subsequently, after a trial, Mr Hanizam was declared innocent and free.
The first check and balance I discovered is how fast the police acted when the incident went viral. This means that police are not as idle as we thought they were and they do keep up with the rakyat environment. Secondly, I actually like it when many fellow Facebookers and Twitterians went berserk on Mr Hanizam’s arrest (excluding their rudeness), forcing the police to explain the procedures and the law to us.
Positively, I found tit bits of transparency between the authorities and us rakyats, enabling both parties to have a better understanding of each other. In my opinion, this is the first successful baby step of check and balance using social media.
Subsequent incidents that followed were the continuous complaints of services given by the hospital, doctors and nurses in the government sector. These complaints came in the form of Facebook posts together with pictures as evidences.
Following up, the management unit of the hospital was quickly alerted and they took action immediately by coming up with a sorry or clarification statement and promise of an investigation. Accountability is the result of check and balance in this case and another observation I noticed is that, everybody acts swiftly like they are on fire whenever they went viral.
It makes me wonder what will happen and how long will it take for the management to sort such problem if the complain did not went to the public. But again, this issue should be reserved in another article.
Another controversial incident that provokes most of the rakyat was the case of Zulkifli, who defended his home from a robber which resulted in the robber’s death. Moreover, Zulkifli was charged with murder that carries the death penalty.
Obviously, many of the rakyat were furious to the point they started to accuse Malaysia to have lousy, unfair laws. Little did they know about the procedures and the actual case facts. Furthermore, silence of the judiciary makes it worse in the public’s eyes.
Nevertheless, there were few attempts to clarify this matter when few kind individuals with legal background did the general explanation on murder, appeal and defences.
They also explained comments by judiciary were reserved due to absence facts of the case. Again, there is a check and balance, perhaps not by the authorities, but by rakyat themselves who are equipped with knowledge in educating the public about the authorities.
One of the importance of check and balance is that it will act as a reminder to the authorities that they cannot act arbitrarily, ignorantly and selfishly. Social media at this point act as a magnifier of the rakyats’ complains as well as gossips which may affect the authorities’ reputation.
Secondly, check and balance will also remind the rakyat on their duties to themselves and the country. The kidnapping incident and the Zulkifli incident can act as a reminder that ignorant of the law is not an excuse, whereby Malaysians have the duty to know and understand our laws before shouting accusations.
Not all duty lies with the government and authorities and we as rakyat of Malaysia must do our part in knowing our rights and duties.
Before I end this article, I would like to acknowledge the negative side of news found in social media without discussing it further in this article. Credibility of sources, validity of content and choice of words used are indeed the usual problems we can recognised in certain news found in social media.
Some of our rakyat have this habit of circulating the news without checking for its validity. This may result in confusion and misrepresentation of facts that may affect someone’s life and reputation.
In conclusion, there will always be pros and cons of every single thing we do in this world. At this point, social media acted as a good platform of check and balance for both three main organs and the rakyat. Hopefully this action will continue to improve in the future.
* This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of Malay Mail Online.
