Blocked blogs

I thought I'd draw your attention to this piece of news. Two popular bloggers, Jeff Ooi and Ahiruddin Atan (the latter being a former journalist) have been served with lawsuits by local English daily, News Straits Times.

Read story here.


Ooi was served with an injunction to bar postings related alleged defamatory to the publication. Ahiruddin, popularly known as Rocky, has received a suit for defamatory postings too.

This injunction and suit I believe,is a first of its kind, proving that although Internet as a medium is not regulated by the strict license and media laws in Malaysia, it was still subject to basic defamation and copyright laws. It goes to show that to completely have freedom of speech in Malaysia still finds stumbling blocks of various kinds.

It will be interesting to see how the powers that be cope with the very rapid changes in technology that allows information to be delivered freely and pervasively.