Malaysian 'Fake News' Law Claims Its First Victim

from the badmouthing-law-enforcement?-that's-a-jailin' dept

The Malaysian government got a jump on the rest of the world by being the first to actually enact a "fake news" law. The government had several hundred million good reasons to do so, most them residing in the prime minister's bank account. Lawmakers cited concern for the public's well-being, but critics noted the law was just an efficient way for the government to shut down reporting it doesn't like.

The nation's Ministry of Truth (a.k.a., the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission) cited free speech champion Donald Trump as the inspiration for this new censorship tool.

“Fake news has become a global phenomenon, but Malaysia is at the tip of the spear in trying to fight it with an anti-fake news law,” said Fadhlullah Suhaimi Abdul Malek, a senior official with the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission. “When the American president made ‘fake news’ into a buzzword, the world woke up.”

The law has already rung up its first arrest for "fake news." And it's someone who's not even a Malaysian citizen.

Salah Salem Saleh Sulaiman seems like an improbable purveyor of “fake news.”

He doesn't run a troll farm or a website designed to spread propaganda. He's not on a mission to destroy a politician or artist. He's not even a journalist.

But this week, he was sentenced to a week in jail for a YouTube video he made, the first casualty of Malaysia's “fake news” law.

[...]

Sulaiman, a Danish citizen of Yemeni descent, said he'd been in Malaysia for less than two weeks when he was arrested.

The video that resulted in a one-week jail sentence dealt with the shooting of a Hamas lecturer, supposedly by Israel's spy agency. Sulaiman claimed it took an hour for an ambulance to arrive after he reported the shooting. The police claimed it only took them eight minutes for a patrol car to arrive. Two days after the video was posted, Sulaiman was arrested and charged with publishing "fake news." His inability to pay a $2,500 fine has increased his sentence to one month.

There's a difference between a police car and an ambulance, which may make the video technically correct. But that really shouldn't matter. Even if his claims were false, there's no way the government should have reacted with anything more than a statement denying Sulaiman's claims. The new law allows the government to arrest and fine anyone who publishes anything the government disagrees with. Six months in jail and fines up to $128,000 are one hell of a chilling effect. All the government seemingly needs to do to make charges stick is deny allegations made by citizens -- or in this case, a nonresident visitor who claims he did not know the government had recently outlawed 'fake news."

Those concerned about the state of speech protections around the world will view this as severely troubling. Those who actually have the power and desire to further restrict criticism and unfavorable reporting will see nothing but upsides for enacting legislation targeting "fake news."

Filed Under: censorship, criticism, fake news, malaysia, police, salah salem saleh sulaiman