‘Sensible Group’ watching cyberspace for sensitive comments

The 'volunteers' are mostly social media users who are against other users using Facebook to post insensitive, insulting remarks and condemning others. – Reuters picKUALA LUMPUR, July 20 — Think twice before you post sensitive comments on the social media relating to race, religion and the position of the King. You are being watched!

There are now volunteers who call themselves the “Sensible and Ethical Malaysian United Troopers” or in short SEMUT who monitor the social media for sensitive remarks or comments that can be harmful to the society.

“The volunteers will feed us the information, including screenshots of the postings. Then we will look at the information and lodge a police report in order for the authorities to initiate investigation,” the group coordinator, Huan Cheng Guan told Bernama.

He said the “volunteers” are mostly social media users who are against other users using Facebook to post insensitive, insulting remarks and condemning others.

“What these volunteers want is for the people to use the social media as a medium of positive interaction and communication tool to build friendship and networking, not to condemn, insult or post sensitive remarks to the extent that they can hurt the feelings of others,” he said.  Huan said many social media users do not understand that they must be responsible for whatever comments they post on their or their friends’ Facebook accounts.

“Yes, it is true that you can post anything you want on FB. However, you must also understand that you are accountable for the comment. The best way to avoid getting into trouble is to be careful with what you post,” he added.

So far, two police reports have been lodged by this group of volunteers against two facebook users whom they accussed of posting insensitive remarks about the Yang di-Pertuan Agong and Prophet Muhammad.

“While we cannot asertain the identities of those posting the remarks, we are hoping that by lodging the report and providing the information, the authorities can conduct thorough investigation and take neccesary action,” he said.

However, Huan explained that those “volunteers” are not trying to compete or undermine the authorities such as the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) and police as they merely provide the information to assist the authorities.

Asked if those volunteers are paid by certain parties to carry out the task, Huan said: “We are volunteers and not paid by anybody. We do it because we don’t want people to continue to use this social media as a platform to condemn certain people, their race, their religion and our king.”

He also denied the group was linked to certain political parties eventhough he was at one time the Penang-based vice-president of Parti Cinta Malaysia (PCM) after he quit Gerakan in 2009.

Huan, who was an elected vice-president of Gerakan when he quit the party, said: “I have contested against Barisan Nasional and Pakatan Rakyat in the general election. I contest against both parties in the Batu Kawan parliamentary and Machang Bubok state seat. How can I be linked to them?” – Bernama 

- malaymail