Bloggers must be responsible

source: http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2007/1/24/nation/16663444&sec=nation

LONDON: Bloggers must be responsible for what they write on the Internet as there are laws on defamation and sedition, Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi said.

The Prime Minister said these laws were enforceable and bloggers must bear in mind that they could not hide or take advantage of the Internet to do something that was against the law.

“They cannot hope to cover themselves or hide from the laws,” he told Malaysian journalists at the end of his three-day working visit here yesterday.

He said bloggers, just like newspaper journalists, must be responsible for what they wrote or risk facing legal action from others.

Abdullah was commenting on the legal action against bloggers Jeff Ooi and Ahirudin Attan by the New Straits Times Press (M) Bhd (NSTP), its deputy chairman Datuk Kali-mullah Masheerul Hassan, Group Editor in Chief Datuk Hishamuddin Aun and former Group Editor Brenden John Pereira.

He raised the question of “what was freedom without responsibility,” saying that laws must be respected.

On the lack of proficiency in English among teachers and lecturers, he said there was a need to improve the curriculum and methods to teach English in schools.

He added that Malaysians must understand that English was an international language.

Abdullah was responding to questions from journalists on the declining standard of English in Malaysian schools and universities.

Earlier, Abdullah told Malaysian students at the London School of Economics of the need for Malaysia to be competitive, pointing out the paces already made by the Chinese and India.

My comment:

Why up until this extent? Why do they feel threatened by fellow bloggers. Most of these bloggers, their writing comes from their sense of responsibilities. They raise up issues that they feel it's worth looking into. I doubt they simply write any matters without giving a thorough thought. I know some blogger who present their facts right with their writings? These fellow do their research first before blabbing it out. Haih.. Sometimes we have to read something besides what the media provide to us!

In describing today's accelerating changes, the media fire blips of unrelated information at us. Experts bury us under mountains of narrowly specialized monographs. Popular forecasters present lists of unrelated trends, without any model to show us their interconnections or the forces likely to reverse them. As a result, change itself comes to be seen as anarchic, even lunatic -- Alvin Toffler.