Unfair to impose laws against bloggers, says Minister

Information Minister Datuk Ahmad Shabery Cheek said checks showed that "naughty" bloggers who abuse cyberspace freedom comprise less than two per cent of Malaysian bloggers.

According to a recent Universiti Malaya study there are an estimated 500,000 active blogs in the country.

Considering that a blogger has an average of two blogs, the number of bloggers in the country could be about 250,000. The number of errant bloggers would therefore be about 5,000.

Shabery said it was unnecessary for the government to impose laws against Malaysian bloggers as is being practiced in some neighbouring nations.

"In some countries, political bloggers have to be registered and they need a licence from the government."

Speaking after opening his ministry's Quality Day celebrations here yesterday, Shabery said on the contrary, the Malaysian government had increased allocations for upgrading to high-speed broadband Internet service, to the bloggers' benefit.

"We hope to offer variegated services for Malaysian Internet users, giving them the chance to even become film producers via YouTube and to blog freely. In fact, this is an area of the creative economy sector that the government hopes to open up for creative graduates being produced in the country now."

He said with RTM's growing digitalisation and increase of channels, it hoped to create about 53,000 jobs for creative graduates by increasing the number of film producers registered with it to 1,200, from the present 60, in three years time.

Shabery said his ministry was closely monitoring the public views and ideas espoused in blogs and from the society at large.

"Every week I submit a report on the issues raised on the blogs to the cabinet.

"We feel the ministry has a big role to play not only in providing the medicine but obtaining the diagnosis on people's fears and worries in a systematic manner."

Shabery said his ministry's sixth ranking among the 27 ministries, in the star rating done by the Malaysian Administrative Modernisation and Management Planning Unit proved that it was still relevant and needed.

-nst