LETTER | Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Mas Ermieyati Samsudin has tabled the Anti-Stalking Bill at the parliament for its first reading recently, aimed at curbing online harassment.

This is definitely good news for all online users, especially for those who had experienced online harassment.

But what caught my attention is that several activists had argued that with the implementation of this Bill, the provisions under the Communications and Multimedia Act 1998 (CMA) can be expanded to cover online harassment as the current ones only handle “offensive content” and “inappropriate use of internet service”.

In my view, both terms can be used to cover online harassment. It is just that they are not specific enough. Such ambiguity often leads to the abuse of the law by the authorities to silence legitimate criticism.

But with the Anti-Stalking Bill clearly defining what stalking is, it is time for us to make key amendments to the provisions under CMA to make it more specific.

“Offensive content”, as it is, could mean a lot of things and it’s very subjective. Besides stalking, does it include cyberbullying, online trolling, distribution of obscene content, blackmail and sexual harassment?

Remove arbitrariness

If yes, what does each of these terms mean under the legal provision? And the usage of internet service for all of these purposes can be deemed as “inappropriate” under the existing law.

Hence, careful legal studies involving all related stakeholders must be conducted before adding these terms to the CMA, and as trends develop, more terms should be added and some terms can be removed.

However, despite all these regulations, the authorities must uphold the spirit of the Federal Constitution that values freedom of expression. Legitimate criticism against the government for its policies and decisions should not fall into the “offensive content” category if they are done properly and should never be added into the act.

We need laws to regulate online behaviour to protect those who need them but it should have no space for abuse and arbitrariness.

And we must protect the interests of those who are willing to voice out for the betterment of the country.

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