Its executive director Eric Paulsen said a country that was constantly cracking down on dissent, stifling free speech and creating a culture of fear could not in good conscience call itself a democracy.
“Malaysia is becoming more akin to totalitarian states like Turkey, China, Vietnam, Egypt, Thailand and Myanmar, where social media is heavily policed and dissidents are harshly dealt with,” he said in a statement.
MCMC recently raided DAP MP Nga Kor Ming’s home, his service centre and even his parents’ house while probing into alleged “offensive postings” against the government on social media.
Pakatan Harapan’s Terengganu women’s wing treasurer Fatimah Lailati Omar was also arrested and remanded for two days to facilitate investigations over comments directed at Terengganu Menteri Besar Ahmad Razif Abdul Rahman.
“It is obvious MCMC has selectively applied Section 233 of the Communications and Multimedia Act 1998 (CMA), the ‘improper use of network facilities’ offence, for the benefit of the government, by targeting dissident social media users, and all the more so if they are members of the opposition, as in the case of Nga and Fatimah.
“In November last year, a factory worker was jailed for four months for merely posting a cartoon that was deemed ‘offensive’ to the prime minister – just the tip of the iceberg of the dozens of needless arrests and prosecution of social media users throughout the year,” Paulsen said.
He added that the time, money and effort expended to arrest, investigate and prosecute people for frivolous “offensive” remarks on social media was a waste of resources.
“These resources would certainly be better served if used to address real crimes and issues like fraud and data security in cyberspace which should be MCMC’s primary concern.”
Paulsen said while MCMC had been extremely efficient in persecuting social media users, it had proven to be hopelessly incompetent and ineffectual in addressing the biggest personal data breach in Malaysia’s history which involved the data of 46.2 million mobile phone users.
This was followed by news today that the personal information of 220,000 organ donors had been leaked online as early as September 2016.
“Questions surely must be asked regarding MCMC’s role in these massive data breaches and whether they have been sleeping on the job.
“What has MCMC done to ensure the personal data stored on public and commercial websites is secured? Did these websites and MCMC know about the breaches earlier but fail to inform the public or their customers?
“It is prudent and necessary for MCMC to keep in mind why it was set up in the first place – to be the professional, impartial and competent regulatory body for the communications and multimedia industry – not as the cyberspace guardian of government leaders’ sensitivities,” Paulsen said.
Report: Personal details of 220,000 organ donors leaked online