{"id":10500,"date":"2011-09-25T20:09:40","date_gmt":"2011-09-25T20:09:40","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2011-09-25T20:09:40","modified_gmt":"2011-09-25T20:09:40","slug":"Social-media-sparks-change-in-Malaysia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/?p=10500","title":{"rendered":"Social media sparks change in Malaysia"},"content":{"rendered":"

The increasing use of social media has led the Malaysian government to review its censorship policy.<\/strong><\/p>\n

It has also embarked on a new public relations exercise to engage voters, ahead of general elections widely expected early next year.<\/p>\n

It began with the July 9 Bersih rally.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Thousands of Malaysians took to the streets in Kuala Lumpur, demanding free and fair elections.<\/strong> Nearly 1,700 were arrested and scores were injured, as riot police fired tear gas and water canons to disperse the crowd.<\/p>\n

The perceived mishandling by authorities dented the government’s image.<\/p>\n

Home minister Hishammuddin Hussein insisted that the police were provoked, and a special commission was formed to investigate alleged misreporting by international media.<\/p>\n

The government has also resorted to blotting out each and every copy of the mid-July issue of the Economist, which carried an article about the rally. <\/p>\n

Instead of censoring the news, the act of censorship itself became an international headline, further jeopardizing the country’s international standing.<\/p>\n

Nazri Abdul Aziz, Minister in the Prime Minister’s department, Malaysia said: “I must say we were quite embarrassed with what happened. That’s why I think the PM decided we must stop this.” <\/p>\n

The government subsequently reviewed its censorship policy.<\/p>\n

On September 16, Malaysia Day, Prime Minister Najib announced wide-ranging reforms that included changing the security and media laws.<\/p>\n

His image immediately received a boost.<\/p>\n

But critics from the mainstream media said an image makeover isn’t a long-term solution.<\/p>\n

Until then, social media will continue to be a popular alternative for many Malaysians.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Source AP<\/em>
\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The increasing use of social media has led the Malaysian government to review its censorship policy. It has also embarked<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":72448,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10500","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"magazineBlocksPostFeaturedMedia":{"thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u-113x150.jpg","medium":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","medium_large":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","large":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","1536x1536":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","2048x2048":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-highlighted-post":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-featured-post-medium":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-featured-post-small":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u-113x90.jpg","colormag-featured-image":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-default-news":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u-113x150.jpg","colormag-featured-image-large":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-elementor-block-extra-large-thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-elementor-grid-large-thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-elementor-grid-small-thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-elementor-grid-medium-large-thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg"},"magazineBlocksPostAuthor":{"name":"Admin","avatar":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/53e6cdc30765aade0129f85e5aeb50124b1d3f5bb9a70373be31e4eb328371e0?s=96&d=mm&r=g"},"magazineBlocksPostCommentsNumber":"0","magazineBlocksPostExcerpt":"The increasing use of social media has led the Malaysian government to review its censorship policy. It has also embarked","magazineBlocksPostCategories":[],"magazineBlocksPostViewCount":122,"magazineBlocksPostReadTime":2,"magazine_blocks_featured_image_url":{"full":["https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg",113,170,false],"medium":["https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg",113,170,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u-113x150.jpg",113,150,true]},"magazine_blocks_author":{"display_name":"Admin","author_link":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/?author=1"},"magazine_blocks_comment":0,"magazine_blocks_author_image":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/53e6cdc30765aade0129f85e5aeb50124b1d3f5bb9a70373be31e4eb328371e0?s=96&d=mm&r=g","magazine_blocks_category":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10500","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10500"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10500\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/72448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10500"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10500"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10500"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}