MCMC to help cops curb access to sites featuring militant activities – Bernama
The Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) is prepared to provide technical and forensic assistance to the Royal Malaysian Police to restrict access to social media websites showing militant activities.
MCMC Monitoring and Enforcement Division chief Zulkarnain Mohd Yasin said, however, the agency's involvement in monitoring and checking the activity could only be carried out with the agreement of the police because it was under their (police) jurisdiction.
"Militant or terrorist activities can be investigated under Section 130 of the Penal Code. But, to date, the MCMC has not received any application from the police or relevant Islamic religious departments on the matter," he told Bernama today.
He was commenting on a newspaper report Friday on the openness of Malaysian militants in Syria in sharing on social media websites their "jihad" (holy war) experience in that country lately.
However, Zulkarnain stressed that the blocking was limited because every social media website, such as Facebook and YouTube, had their own terms and conditions of use.
"Not all the contents uploaded onto Facebook or YouTube can be blocked because this can adversely affect other contents on the social media website for other users," he said.
Nevertheless, the administrator of the social media websites could take firm action against the owners of the account which had uploaded contents which were militant in nature, he said.
In this regard, the public was also encouraged to report directly to Facebook and YouTube those social media accounts which flouted the terms and conditions of their use.
On Friday, Deputy Home Minister Datuk Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar was quoted as saying police were tracking websites and blogs promoting fake "jihad" and militant movements to the public.
He said police would tightly monitor websites, especially social media websites, used to recruit militants for Syria and Iraq.
Bernama had reported last Wednesday that a 93-second video clip, believed to have been recorded by a Malaysian involved in the civil war in Syria, had gone viral on YouTube.
Entitled, “Siria - Mercenarios Asiáticos Combaten en las Filas Terroristas - 7”, it was uploaded on YouTube on June 7, and recorded by an individual who spoke in Bahasa Malaysia.
The video also showed a tank on the way to the battlefield and a group of armed men in military fatigue on a truck. – Bernama, June 29, 2014.
