Don’t depend solely on the Internet

Electronic communications may be a powerful tool to mould public opinion, but they are still vulnerable to disruptions.

COMMENT

Today’s political activists have tended to become too dependent on the Internet, SMS and other forms of electronic communications to get their messages across, which makes them vulnerable should these channels be cut, as had happened recently in Egypt.

However, major political changes throughout history happened long before the mass availability of the Internet and SMS. There was no electricity at the time of the French Revolution (1789-99) and the American War of Independence (1763-1775), while the telegraph and telephones were not available to the masses at the time of the Bolshevik revolution in Russia (1917).

The massive protests of American students and youth against the Vietnam War in the late 1960s happened at the time when ARPANET, the forerunner of today’s Internet, was just being set up by the US government in 1969 but long before it became available to the masses from around 1994.

All these political activists relied on traditional means of organisation and mobilisation which have proven to be more effective in influencing people and bringing about change than the thousands or millions of websites, blogs, Twitter and Facebook groups today.

This is pretty evident from the rather quiescent anti-Iraq and anti-Afghanistan war movements today. While there are hundreds or thousands of websites and blogs exposing the truth about the 9-11 attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon in 2001, the foreclosures of many homes, the cause of the economic decline in the US and many more, there were very little in the way of mass demonstrations, strikes and other mass mobilisation except for the rightist Tea Party movement.

Fortunately for the Egyptian pro-democracy protesters, they were able to fall back on more traditional means of communication and mobilisation and were able to continue to increase their numbers despite loss of access to Twitter and Facebook, as well as mobile communications.

While some were able to fall back on older technologies such as dialup Internet connections to service providers outside Egypt or to call overseas to leave voice messages which would be converted to text and Tweeted, this mode is not only expensive but could also be disrupted had the regime decided to also cut international telephone calls.

Object lesson

However, while Internet connections between Egypt and the rest of the world have now been restored, their rather unprecedented total suspension for a few days should be an object lesson to political activists worldwide not to proverbially put all the eggs in one basket.

Closer to home, on Feb 2, Information, Communications and Culture Minister Rais Yatim announced that guidelines covering the dissemination of information through the media, including the Internet, would be tabled before the Cabinet soon.

These guidelines are based on existing provisions and clauses under the Sedition Act, the Communications and Multimedia Act 1998 and the Printing Presses and Publications Act 1984 (PPPA). They were enforced on the print and broadcast media but not on online media until now. Thus, over the years this gave rise to a false sense of confidence and complacency among the online news portals that the guidelines do not apply to them.

This move is nowhere as drastic as what Egypt did; it could well have been influenced by the proposed Protecting Cyberspace as National Asset Act of 2010 (a.k.a. “Internet Kill Switch”) legislation to be put before a US Senate committee again soon.

If passed, it would give the US president the authority to instruct Internet service providers to suspend Internet communications with critical infrastructure such as the electrical grid during times of emergency.

However, civil liberty groups are concerned that the definition of “critical infrastructure” is ill-defined and that its scope could be extended to include free speech online.

The Malaysian government’s move will certainly curtail the relatively unfettered freedom to comment which online news portals and the many blogs in Malaysia have enjoyed for well over 10 years.

While it most probably will have little effect on curtailing anonymous online authors, bloggers and commentators posting on sites hosted overseas, it certainly will impact upon articles and reports by known authors, publishers and organisations residing in or based in Malaysia.

Anonymous sites

So we can expect to see more anonymous sites and blogs springing up but they would most likely be unable to attract advertisements, which would render them economically not viable.

Also, don’t expect this move to result in any major loss of foreign direct investment into Malaysia, even though it is contrary to point 7 of the 10-point MSC Malaysia Bill of Guarantees, which promises not to censor the Internet.

While it’s true that this assurance was sought during a dialogue between former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad and potential investors in the Silicon Valley, most investors in MSC Malaysia are only concerned that their Internet communications, equity rights and rights to repatriate their profits are not affected.

Also, the quality and reliability of the communications infrastructure and of their electrical power supply are of bigger concern to them than the internal affairs of Malaysia, such as this recent move (to introduce guidelines for the online press).

For example, the lack of availability of quality and reliable broadband to homes was a factor which made Malaysia a less attractive investment location.

Company executives need to communicate with their head offices in their home countries after working hours due to the time difference. But they could not do so from their homes because of the lack of reliable broadband although they enjoyed good Internet connectivity in the various technology parks. They often had to go back to their offices in the early hours of the morning.

This led to the government instituting initiatives such as MyICMS886, the National Broadband Plan and the High-Speed Broadband project to provide broadband access to homes across Malaysia. These initiatives were successful and as of October last year, household broadband penetration was 53%.

Mass medium

The move to regulate online contents is not surprising since online media has now become a mass medium, compared to the late 1990s when Internet penetration was comparatively low and mostly confined to the urban areas.

While there was no Twitter, Facebook or YouTube back then, there was a proliferation of alternative websites hosted for free by providers such as Geocities, Tripod and others but it did not matter much since urban dwellers tended to vote for the opposition, anyway.

However, now that more people in the smaller towns and rural areas have Internet access and the youth there are more tech-savvy, freedom of expression on the Internet has become of greater concern to the ruling party, since people in these areas have been their traditional supporters.

Then again, the ruling party’s victory in the recent Tenang by-election suggests that the wider availability of Internet access has not adversely affected its prospects.

After all, the Internet is neutral and provides equal opportunity for access to the ruling party’s or the opposition’s viewpoints, while people tend to gravitate to those opinions which they generally agree with.

Also, as FMT reporters in Tenang found out, issues such as the novel Interlok which are of concern to urban folk were either unheard of or are of little concern to the folk in Tenang who are more worried with economic issues affecting their survival.

Still, instead of trying to regulate what’s online, the government could step up its publicity efforts online and let the people decide. - FMT