COMMENT | Social media licensing: Is it being done with right intentions?

COMMENT | Initially, I was going to write an angry article about how the government is curbing freedom of speech and expression by imposing an annual license for all social media platforms.

It gave me flashbacks of the mid-2000s when the government of the day floated the idea of wanting everyone in Malaysia who had blogs to be registered with the government. It was a foolish idea and I’m glad it never happened.

So when Communications Minister Fahmi Fadzil announced that the government wants social media platforms operating in Malaysia to register, I thought “What happened to you Fahmi? You were so cool before you became a minister.”

He was one of those people who would have protested the move to want bloggers to be registered many years ago.

However, with further retrospection, research and thought, I don’t think I will be writing a very angry article. The reason is that I think...