The Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission has blocked access to Medium – the online blogging platform. According to the blocked site, this was due to its refusal to remove a post by the Sarawak Report about Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak.
The Sarawak Report has been blocked by the MCMC for allegedly posting false accusations against the Prime Minister. The blog has been using Medium as a means of reaching Malaysians since the internet blockade was put in place by mirroring its articles on the site. However, this appears to have caught the attention of the MCMC and the blogging platform was soon issued a takedown notice.
As Medium puts it, the article in question was to be taken down for being false, unsubstantiated, misleading, and in violation of Section 223 of the Communications an Multimedia Act 1998. Medium had subsequently requested clarification on several points before deciding on a course of action. Instead of receiving a reply, the site soon discovered that several Malaysian users were saying that they are now unable to access the site.
The block by the MCMC does not appear to affect all ISPs at the moment. We have been able to connect to Medium at the moment, although it looks like the site is unavailable through our mobile data connections. Interestingly, there is no MCMC block message on mobile browsers.
Medium itself is not saying that the Sarawak Report’s article is true, but rather that it is in no place to verify the authencity of information presented. However, it refuses to remove the story as it does not violate the terms of use of the platform, nor does it appear to be breaking any laws in particular.
[Source: Medium (which is probably blocked at the moment)]
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