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KUCHING (May 28): The government should consider reinstating the Anti-Fake News Act, which was abolished in 2019, to combat fake news that could put the country’s political stability and social harmony at stake, said Dr Muzaffar Syah Mallow.
The Universiti Sains Islam Malaysia Faculty of Syariah and Law associate professor asserted that fake news is misleading information that aimed at damaging the reputation of a person or an entity.
“Fake news can include satirical articles misinterpreted as genuine, and articles that employ sensationalist or clickbait headlines that are not supported in the text.
“The presence of fake news can cause many problems to the society. People will become confused over the news which has been presented to them and they will no longer trust the news which has been reported,” he said in a statement issued in conjunction of the National Journalists Day (Hawana) celebration, which fell on May 29.
In Malaysia, Muzaffar said the short-lived Anti-Fake News Act 2018 defined fake news as any news, information, data and reports, which was or were wholly or partly false, whether in the form of features, visuals or audio recordings or in any other forms capable of suggesting words or ideas.
He recalled that the Anti-Fake News Act 2018 also provided for the extraterritorial application, stating that where an offence was committed by any person, whether a Malaysian citizen or not, outside of Malaysia, and where the fake news concerned Malaysia or affected a Malaysian citizen, it may be dealt with as if it was committed within Malaysia.
According to him, the Anti-Fake News Act 2018 also enabled people affected by the publication of fake news to apply for a court order requiring the removal of the publication.
“The government was able to make such an application, and the Anti-Fake News Act 2018 provided that where a person was subject to an order obtained by the government in relation to a publication that is prejudicial, or likely to be prejudicial, to public order or national security, he or she cannot apply for the order to be set aside.
“Where a person does not comply with a removal order, the police can be authorised by the court to take the necessary measures to remove such publication,” he said.
Muzaffar pointed out that the rationale for having the Anti-Fake News Act 2018 was to equip the country with law which could effectively deal with fake news.
“Although there are various existing laws which can be used to address this issue, the rapid and complex development of communications technology means the problem cannot be managed effectively through the existing laws.
“What’s more, the existing laws such as the Penal Code [Act 574], Printing, Presses and Publications Act 1984 [Act 301], Communications and Multimedia Act 1998 [Act 588] and Sedition Act 1948 [Act 15] were drafted during or before the 1990s, and they could not address the nature of increasingly complex offences in line with the rapid technological progress within the media or news industry,” he added.
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