True or False, Red Bean Army Speaks to Worrying Trends

(The Choice) - As GE13 approached, former Pakatan officials leaked the existence of the so-called 'Red Bean Army', a group of paid DAP cybertroopers numbering up to 3,000 based out of Penang and KL, who flooded social media and blogs with outright lies, disinformation and co-ordinated attacks on candidates and parties.

As reported by The Choice, ex-PKR Youth information bureau secretary Nordin Ahmad confirmed the existence of the group and claimed Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim had used it to further his baseless allegations of electoral fraud.

Now Chinese language daily, China Press, claims that a certain Li Shuang had admitted to the existence of a Red Bean Army Facebook fanpage, Zheng Yi Zhi Sheng.

Yet the allegations carry weight because so many have experience with Pakatan cybertroopers using racially derogatory terms to crude insults in social media, from flooding a site with indecent comments to launching attacks designed to bring down a site. Opposition-friendly portals that report negatively on Pakatan leaders have also experienced these attacks.

The DAP categorically denies the existence of the group. Speak to the Star daily, Jeff Ooi, Malaysia's first blogger elected into Parliament, claimed that the seeming limitless swarm of Pakatan Rakyat cybertroopers are merely everyday people echoing the abusive chat room culture of the 1990s.

Yet even taking the DAP at its collective word, Pakatan Rakyat are not absolved from responsibility. Whether there is or isn't a Red Bean Army, Pakatan sets the tone, using irresponsible rhetoric that cybertroopers then magnify into harassment and true criminal acts such as sedition and inciting racial violence.

Anwar's entire history of political speech since the polls concluded in May has been fuel for the cybertroopers' fire; but his irresponsible actions hardly began on May 5, 2013. Before the election had even occurred, Anwar with his political allies in Bersih and barely-disguised Pakatan NGOs had already accused the Government of stealing the election.

Pakatan's cybertroopers, whether organised or not, took their cues and promoted these ideas on every site imaginable. In one notorious example, comment threads on articles about Samsung's new mobile phones were overrun with allegations that the Government would shut down mobiles in Pakatan-controlled states during the election.

This sort of thing poisons online discourse, which in turn fuels paranoia and mistrust offline. It undermines national unity when it is needed most, and divides the rakyat even more. The goal of national reconciliation – a goal nominally shared by Pakatan Rakyat – suffers with each wave of cyberattacks.

"Please observe some kind of decorum and never accuse people of being guilty unless you have proof," Ooi advises. This is good advice, but it is something that should start first with his own coalition.