We Fought The Malaysian Government's Internet Censorship Plan (And Won)

Edit:

Link to the new petition on Malaysia's Online Kill Switch policy!

Link: hhttps://chng.it/Kq6rLx4bXg

It's not every day that you can say that you fought the government, but it's exactly what I did.

I straight up looked it straight in the eye and then threw a metaphorical punch the moment I heard that they were going to cut off the internet.

Well, not literally, they weren't going to literally cut off the internet, but it was effectively so.

When the government first announced the DNS redirect policy, which would have mandated ISPs around Malaysia to implement what is called DNS redirect.

If you don't know what that is, don't worry, you're not alone - But here's a super short explanation.

Domain names are the names of websites that you use, and DNS, short for domain name system, is any system that converts the names that we use into the numerical addresses that computers use: They perform the task of retrieving the information at that address and displaying it to us.

The government normally blocks certain websites on local DNS servers, and some people try to use public DNS servers for reasons like speed, efficiency, and access to content.

But the government decided that that restriction needed to be tightened, and so they called for blockage of every international public DNS.

The internet was livid, but everybody felt a sense of frustration.

It was that same sense of frustration that led me to write the petition that I ended up sending to YB Fahmi Fadzil and also to YB Teo Nie Ching 48 hours before the policy was cancelled by a single tweet from Fahmi Fadzil.

You can find the petition here.

Link: https://www.change.org/p/oppose-the-m...

Let's not get complacent about internet freedoms though, and let's not pretend that petitions alone make things like this happen - because if you think that this was a worthwhile outcome and you signed the petition or shared it, then know that you contributed to the outcome.

In this video, I reflect upon freedom of speech and online harms in a Malaysian context and also highlight some of the things that came about from the discussion session - Here, I will say that a lot of the problems that people were facing during the DNS redirect period were because of ISPs. Specifically, the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission had advised ISPs to implement DNS blocking and the ISPs had implemented it in different ways, therefore resulting in problems with internet usage for users - Sometimes even on websites that the ISPs weren't supposed to have blocked and issues with many legitimate websites.

It was a pleasure to engage with members of the PDRM, MCMC, and also members of the Securities Commission and the tech industry alike. Anyway, Malaysia has a long ways to go when it comes to this question of internet governance and I hope that this conversation can continue.

Thank you to MCMC for inviting me and for the engaging session, thank you to YB Fahmi and YB Teo for listening to me, and thank you to the Ministry of Communications for eventually featuring me on all of your press statements. (Should I ask for royalties?!)

Example: https://www.channelnewsasia.com/asia/...

Thank you for following this small journey, and I look forward to engaging with you guys at a later point!