LETTER | Let's be rational about the clampdown on fake news

LETTER | The clampdown on fake news has taken a new twist as the emergency ordinance comes into force on March 11.

Some say that this new and punishing ordinance is a direct affront to freedom of speech. Others say that it is an absolute abuse of power since Parliament cannot debate, fine-tune and ensure the ordinance is free of diabolic intent before it is passed.

Some others maintain that fake news in any form and through any means has no place in a multicultural, multireligious and multiracial Malaysia where it is generally believed that anything and everything can cause national disturbance.

Firstly, generating and sharing fake news, or what we would regard as rumour-mongering in the good old days where social media and online portals were unheard of, is morally wrong.

Hence, it is the responsibility of any good government to discourage fake news, especially if it is deliberately conceived to cause mischief and unrest.

But who determines when is news fake?

And if news is generated or shared merely owing to hearsay or for a lack of clarification from the affected or implicated source/s, is it still categorised as fake?

The fact is, fake news does take away our freedom to peaceful existence. It creates all the negative impacts from fears to insecurities to hatred.

But information can never be complete in the human domain. It evolves constantly - transforming or distorting in the passage of time.

What is paraded as truth may one day be proven to be false, just as much as what is fake may actually one day be found to be the truth.

It is a paradox afflicting not just us Malaysians but the whole of human civilisation all through the centuries.

Hence, would extreme and punishing laws actually effectively and efficiently curb fake news?

Or would such severely and seemingly deterrent laws force more suspicions, distrust and allegations to go underground undetected, only to spew out with damaging effects at the least expected moment in time?

Are we missing out on some eternal truths tested and proven since the dawn of life on earth?

Could we not have taken a path where we could groom society to have a disdain for fake news or news not substantively proven to be reliable?

A moral and principled society will need no punishing laws to behave with honesty.

But some will say that that is sheer idealism. Fine, so be it. But when we lose sight of idealism, society stagnates.

It appears that Malaysians are once again trapped in a paradox and only time will tell the price we would have eventually paid.

After all, despite mandatory death sentences, drug abuse and cartels continue to ravage our society to this day.

So, will the fake news emergency ordinance bring soothing relief to an otherwise politically fatigued nation, or will it push the people into the deep recesses of word-of-mouth rumour-mongering?

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini