The Milestone of Blogs and Bloggers in Malaysia

Malayan Law Journal Articles/2010/Volume 3/THE MILESTONE OF BLOGS AND BLOGGERS IN MALAYSIA

[2010] 3 MLJ cvii

Malayan Law Journal Articles

2010

THE MILESTONE OF BLOGS AND BLOGGERS IN MALAYSIA

Aishath Muneeza

 Postgraduate student

 Harun M Hashim Law Centre

In this era of technology, paper-based media is diffident. With the advent of blogs people are able to liberally express themselves across the borders at zero cost. Freedom of expression is a constitutional right with a limitation. This paper identifies the liabilities faced by bloggers under existing Malaysian laws, determines the loopholes, if any, in these legislations and proposes ways in which blogs and bloggers can be regulated in Malaysia. In the course of doing this, a curious issue arises and is answered, that is, whether bloggers in Malaysia are regarded as   journalists.

Keywords: bloggers, blogging, freedom, Malaysia.

INTRODUCTION

This is the era of technology. Paper-based media is diffident. With the advent of blogs people have found the means to liberally express themselves across the borders at zero cost. Freedom of expression is a constitutional right, which has its limitations. Violating another individual's privacy, the leaking of official information, threatening national interest, passing seditious remarks and last but not least, infringing copyright laws are common occurrences in the blogosphere.

A blog is a type of website, usually maintained by an individual with regular entries in the form of commentaries, description of events or the inclusion of material such as graphics or videos. Entries are commonly displayed in a reverse chronological order. The word 'blog' can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog.

Moreover, blogs are permeating most niches of social life, addressing a range of topics from scholarly and political issues (Glenn, 2003) to family and children's daily lives (Turnbull, 2004). As blog writers become increasingly prolific, however, they are likely to encounter issues of privacy and liability. For example, accounts of

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bloggers hurting friends' feelings or losing their jobs because of materials published on their sites are becoming more frequent (Bray, 2004; Nussbaum, 2004; O'Shea, 2003; Pax, 2003; Phillips, 2003; Sarnataro, 2003; St John, 2003; Whitworth, 2003).

Blogs are indeed in cyberspace. Because blogging has the power to affect not only the lives of bloggers themselves but also of the people, companies and products that are 'blogged' about, it is important to understand how accountability and privacy expectations function in this emergent arena (Viegas, 2005).