Internet is the biggest copy machine ever built by mankind history (Campbell 1996), in which is a place closes to gaining limitless information for free in comparison towards other medias. Hence, with information being able to flow freely, users may be able to gain much benefit to search information in related towards their interest, however this also raises threat towards a designated party given if the information taken by the users are of bad intention such as for political views. Given information of the internet is limitless, credibility of the particular information will be the first issue such as information being shared on social networking sites, whether or not the information is crafted or actually being gained from a credible source. Hence, one of the major steps taken by the government of Malaysia was to control certain information on the internet as stated by Suffian (2009), to avoid issue towards the national security from misusing information over the internet users.
However, since the country’s media is being regulated and controlled by the ruling political party, the only way the oppositions to share their information was through the internet platform (Suffian 2009), as the arrival of internet has changed the way of many political landscape not just Malaysia but even in other countries. The internet platform offers digital activism to be participated by the netizens in discussing manners through available platforms such as social networks, forums and blogs in relation towards their respective political climate or even other type of topic categories in interest towards individual taste (Hirzalla et al 2011). Hence is reasonable for the internet to have a feudal system, with a curator over the limitless information of flow of content, as the internet as stated is the largest ever copy machine, copyright issue become one of the main highlights with the arrival of Internet as people may resort towards plagiarism and piracy claiming others work for their own (Hayes 2002).
The Internet is a decentralized platform interconnecting one with another (Shelly 2008), hence there is no idea who are the people behind the screens of these devices. A feudal lord of the platform in regards of Admins, moderators or the owner should always have certain amount control on power in regards of a platform such as social networking sites, forums and blogs to act as curator over the platform information.
Reference
Hayes, D.L. 2002, ‘Internet copyright: Advanced copyright issues on the internet – part VIII’, Computer Law & Security Review, vol.18, no.1, pp 3 – 10.
Hirzalla et al 2011, ‘Internet use and political participation: reflections on the mobilisation / normalisation controversy’, The information Society, vol.27, pp 1 – 15.
KK Campbell 1996, ‘A question of copyright The Internet – where file can be copied and sent instantly and endlessly around the globe – has become the world’s largest photocopy machine. Should we be concerneda?’, THE STAR, Toronto, Ont., Canada.
Shelly, G.B., Cashman, T.J., Napier, H.A. & Judd, P.J. 2008, ‘Discovering the internet complete concepts and techniques, Shelly Cashman Series, 2nd Edn, pp 2-34.
Suffian, I. 2009, ‘Reflections of the 2008 Malaysian general election: role of the internet in political communications’, Merdeka Centre for Opinion Research, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
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