According to the online news portal, planned amendments to the Communications and Multimedia Act (CMA) 1998 will require online news practitioners, as well as bloggers, to register with the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) before they are allowed to operate.
Deputy Home Minister Nur Jazlan Mohamed, contacted by Malay Mail Online, confirmed the suggestion was first mooted late last year, and preliminary discussions had begun.
Under the Printing Presses and Publications Act 1984, the home minister has the power to suspend a print publication.
Currently, Putrajaya does not have any law to wield specifically against news portals that publish allegedly false news, unlike their print publication counterparts.
The matter first emerged when Nur Jazlan said the Home Ministry wanted bloggers to register with the MCMC in order for authorities to monitor comments and articles that were defamatory in nature.
A source with the MCMC confirmed the proposal but stressed the matter was still at a preliminary stage. “I don’t know why the deputy minister has chosen to speak about this; it is still just a proposal. We are still in the planning stages, (and) we are still coordinating with the relevant ministries.
Putrajaya originally pledged to leave Internet access in Malaysia uncensored when it first established the Multimedia Super Corridor in the 1990s.
However, the government has since blocked sites deemed unsuitable, such as pornographic sites and sites considered to be in violation of local laws.
Last week, Deputy Communications and Multimedia Minister Jailani Johari revealed in Parliament that MCMC had blocked 52 media websites and investigated 14 social media abuse cases since the setting-up of the Special Committee to Combat Abuse of Social Media in January this year.
Since then, news portal The Malaysian Insider had been blocked due to a news report quoting an anonymous source on a Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) advisory panel which contradicted official statements by the commission. The Malaysian Insider has since ceased operations.
Whistleblower site Sarawak Report still remains inaccessible to most Internet users in Malaysia, for allegedly publishing unverified news, the MCMC said.