KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak’s government tabled a bill in parliament on Monday outlawing “fake news,” with hefty fines and up to 10 years in jail, raising more concerns about media freedom in the wake of a multi-billion dollar graft scandal.
The bill was tabled ahead of a national election that is expected to be called within weeks and as Najib faces widespread criticism over the scandal at state fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB).
Under the Anti-Fake News 2018 bill, anyone who published so-called fake news could face fines of up to 500,000 ringgit ($128,140), up to 10 years in jail, or both.
“The proposed Act seeks to safeguard the public against the proliferation of fake news whilst ensuring the right to freedom of speech and expression under the Federal Constitution is respected,” it said.
It defines fake news as “news, information, data or reports which is or are wholly or partly false” and includes features, visuals and audio recordings.
The law, which covers digital publications and social media, also applies to offenders outside Malaysia, including foreigners, as long as Malaysia or a Malaysian citizen were affected.
The bill states it is hoped the public would be more responsible and cautious in sharing news and information.
Opposition lawmakers have questioned the need for such a law, arguing that the government already had broad powers over free speech and the media.
“This is an attack on the press and an attempt to instill fear among the rakyat (people) before GE14,” opposition lawmaker Ong Kian Ming said on Twitter after the bill was tabled, using a Malaysian term for this year’s election.
The 1MDB scandal, exposed by foreign media and news blogs in 2015, refuses to die down despite Najib’s consistent denials of any wrongdoing and his government’s firm grip on Malaysia’s state-owned mainstream media.
Transactions related to 1MDB are under investigation in six countries including the United States, where the Department of Justice has launched civil cases to recover assets linked to the fund after investigations under an anti-kleptocracy initiative.
The Malaysian government has acted harshly against media reporting on 1MDB. It suspended one newspaper, The Edge, in 2015 and blocked other websites for publishing stories critical of Najib’s role.
A deputy minister was quoted in Malaysian media last week as saying that any news on 1MDB that had not been verified by the government was “fake.”
Governments elsewhere in Southeast Asia, including Singapore and the Philippines, have proposed laws aimed at clamping down on the spread of “fake news,” moves decried by media rights advocates.
Malaysia proposes up to 10 years’ jail, fines for publishers of ‘fake news’
Malaysia proposes up to 10 years’ jail, fines for publishers of ‘fake news’
Australia frets over Meta halt to US fact-checking
- Australia has frequently irked social media giants with its efforts to restrict the distribution of false information or content it deems dangerous
- Late last year, the country passed laws to ban under-16s from signing up for social media platforms
SYDNEY: Australia is deeply concerned by Meta’s decision to scrap US fact-check operations on its Facebook and Instagram platforms, a senior minister said Thursday.
The government – which has been at the forefront of efforts to rein in social media giants – was worried about a surge of false information spreading online, Treasurer Jim Chalmers said.
“Misinformation and disinformation is very dangerous, and we’ve seen it really kind of explode in the last few years,” Chalmers told national broadcaster ABC.
“And it’s a very damaging development, damaging for our democracy. It can be damaging for people’s mental health to get the wrong information on social media, and so of course we are concerned about that.”
Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg announced Tuesday the group would “get rid of fact-checkers” and replace them with community-based posts, starting in the United States.
Chalmers said the decision was “very concerning.”
The government had invested in trusted Australian news providers such as the ABC and national newswire AAP to ensure people had reliable sources for information, he said.
Disinformation and misinformation had become “a bigger and bigger part of our media, particularly our social media,” the treasurer said.
Australia has frequently irked social media giants, notably Elon Musk’s X, with its efforts to restrict the distribution of false information or content it deems dangerous.
Late last year, the country passed laws to ban under-16s from signing up for social media platforms. Offenders face fines of up to A$50 million ($32.5 million) for “systemic breaches.”
But in November, a lack of support in parliament forced the government to ditch plans to fine social media companies if they fail to stem the spread of misinformation.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said Wednesday he stood by the ban on children’s access to social media because of the impact it had on their mental health.
Asked about Meta’s fact-checking retreat, Albanese told reporters: “I say to social media they have a social responsibility and they should fulfil it.”
Australian group Digital Rights Watch said Meta had made a “terrible decision,” accusing it of acting in clear deference to incoming US president Donald Trump.
AFP currently works in 26 languages with Facebook’s fact-checking program.
Facebook pays to use fact checks from around 80 organizations globally on the platform, as well as on WhatsApp and Instagram.
Australian fact-checking operation AAP FactCheck said its contract with Meta in Australia, New Zealand, and the Pacific was not impacted by the group’s US decision.
“Independent fact-checkers are a vital safeguard against the spread of harmful misinformation and disinformation that threatens to undermine free democratic debate in Australia and aims to manipulate public opinion,” said AAP chief executive Lisa Davies.
CNN defamation trial comes at a rough time for legacy media — and for the struggling network
- US Navy veteran Zachary Young blames CNN for destroying his business when it displayed his face onscreen during a story that discussed a “black market” in smuggling out Afghans for high fees at the time of the Taliban takeover
NEW YORK: At a particularly inopportune time for legacy media and CNN, the news outlet is on trial in Florida this week, accused of defaming a Navy veteran involved in rescuing endangered Afghans from that country when the US ended its involvement there in 2021.
The veteran, Zachary Young, blames CNN for destroying his business when it displayed his face onscreen during a story that discussed a “black market” in smuggling out Afghans for high fees at the time of the Taliban takeover.
In a broader sense, the case puts the news media on the stand in journalism critic Donald Trump’s home state weeks before he’s due to begin his second term as president, and on the same day Facebook’s parent introduced a Trump-friendly policy of backing off fact checks. Young’s attorney, Kyle Roche, leaned into the press’ unpopularity in his opening arguments on Tuesday.
“You’re going to have an opportunity to do something significant in this trial,” Roche told jurors in Florida’s 14th Judicial Circuit Courts in Panama City on Tuesday. “You’re going to have an opportunity to send a message to mainstream media. You’re going to have an opportunity to change an industry.”
That’s the fear. Said Jane Kirtley, director of the Silha Center for the Study of Media Ethics and the Law at the University of Minnesota: “Everybody in the news media is on trial in this case.”
Actual defamation trials are rare in this country
Defamation trials are actually rare in the United States, in part because strong constitutional protections for the press make proving libel difficult. From the media’s standpoint, taking a case to a judge or jury is a risk many executives don’t want to take.
Rather than defend statements that George Stephanopoulos made about Trump last spring, ABC News last month agreed to make the former president’s libel lawsuit go away by paying him $15 million toward his presidential library. In the end, ABC parent Walt Disney Co. concluded an ongoing fight against Trump wasn’t worth it, win or lose.
In the most high-profile libel case in recent years, Fox News agreed to pay Dominion Voting Systems $787 million on the day the trial was due to start in 2023 to settle the company’s claims of inaccurate reporting in the wake of the 2020 presidential election.
The Young case concerns a segment that first aired on Jake Tapper’s program on Nov. 11, 2021, about extraction efforts in Afghanistan. Young had built a business helping such efforts, and advertised his services on LinkedIn to sponsors with funding who could pay for such evacuation.
He subsequently helped four separate organizations — Audible, Bloomberg, a charity called H.E.R.O. Inc. and a Berlin-based NGO called CivilFleet Support eV — get more than a dozen people out of Afghanistan, according to court papers. He said he did not market to — or take money from — individual Afghans.
Yet Young’s picture was shown as part of CNN story that talked about a “black market” where Afghans were charged $10,000 or more to get family members out of danger.
The plaintiff says the story’s reference to ‘black market’ damaged him
To Young, the “black market” label implied some sort of criminality, and he did nothing illegal. “It’s devastating if you’re labeled a criminal all over the world,” Young testified on Tuesday.
CNN said in court papers that Young’s case amounts to “defamation by implication,” and that he hadn’t actually been accused of nefarious acts. The initial story he complained about didn’t even mention Young until three minutes in, CNN lawyer David Axelrod argued on Tuesday.
Five months after the story aired, Young complained about it, and CNN issued an on-air statement that its use of the phrase “black market” was wrong. “We did not intend to suggest that Mr. Young participated in a black market. We regret the error. And to Mr. Young, we apologize.”
That didn’t prevent a defamation lawsuit, and the presiding judge, William S. Henry, denied CNN’s request that it be dismissed. CNN, in a statement, said that “when all the facts come to light, we are confident we will have a verdict in our favor.”
Axelrod argued on Tuesday that CNN’s reporting was tough, fair and accurate. He told the jury that they will hear no witnesses who will say they thought less of Young or wouldn’t hire him because of the story — in other words, no one to back up his contention that it was so damaging to his business and life.
Yet much like Fox was publicly hurt in the Dominion case by internal communications about Trump and the network’s coverage, some unflattering revelations about CNN’s operations will likely become part of the trial. They include internal messages where CNN’s reporter, Alex Marquardt, says unflattering and profane things about Young. A CNN editor was also revealed on messages to suggest that a Marquardt story on the topic was “full of holes,” Roche said.
“At the end of the day, there was no one at CNN who was willing to stand up for the truth,” Roche said. “Theater prevailed.”
Axelrod, who shares a name with a longtime Democratic political operative and CNN commentator, contended that the give and take was part of a rigorous journalistic process putting the video segment and subsequent printed stories together. “Many experienced journalists put eyes on these stories,” he said.
It’s still going to be difficult for CNN to go through. The network, with television ratings at historic lows, doesn’t need the trouble.
“At a moment of wider vilification and disparagement of the press, there is every reason to believe this will be weaponized, even if CNN prevails,” said RonNell Andersen Jones, a professor at the University of Utah law school and expert on libel law.
The case is putting a media organization and its key players on the stand in a very public way, which is something people don’t usually see.
“I always dread any kind of libel cases because the likelihood that something bad will come out of it is very high,” Minnesota’s Kirtley said. “This is not a great time to be a libel defendant if you’re in the news media. If we ever did have the support of the public, it has seriously eroded over the past few years.”
‘Offensive’ Muslim fintech ads banned in UK for showing burning banknotes
- Posters by Wahed Invest were banned by Advertising Standards Authority after agency received 75 complaints
LONDON: Adverts by Muslim fintech company Wahed Invest have been banned in the UK for featuring burning banknotes, which the country’s advertising watchdog deemed “offensive.”
The New York-based investment platform, which targets the Muslim community, ran a series of posters across London’s transport system in September and October.
The ads showed US dollar and euro banknotes on fire alongside slogans such as “Join the money revolution” and “Withdraw from Riba” — a term referring to the Islamic prohibition of interest.
The Advertising Standards Authority said it received 75 complaints that the ads were offensive.
“The ads represented the expression that viewers’ money was ‘going up in flames’ and that images of burning money were commonly encountered,” the ASA said in a statement.
“However, regardless of whether viewers would have understood that message or understood it as a defiant act designed to show a challenge to financial institutions, the currencies which were burned in all of the ads were clearly visible as US dollar and euro banknotes.”
The advert also featured images of Muslim preacher Ismail ibn Musa Menk and Russian former professional mixed martial artist Khabib Abdulmanapovich Nurmagomedov.
Three of the posters showed Menk holding an open briefcase filled with US dollar and euro banknotes on fire, with two of them stating “Withdraw from Exploitation.”
Wahed defended the campaign, explaining that the burning banknotes symbolized money “going up in flames” due to inflation outpacing savings growth.
The company, which describe itself as an investment platform allowing consumers who were predominantly Muslim to invest in a manner which aligned with their faith and values, launched in the US in 2017 and is backed by the oil company Saudi Aramco and the French footballer Paul Pogba.
Wahed acknowledged that the currencies depicted in the ads could be viewed as symbols of national identity but argued that the imagery of burning money was a powerful reference to hyperinflation, a concept often depicted in popular culture through film and television.
A spokesperson added: “We understand that visuals like those included in our campaign can elicit strong reactions.
“While our intention was to spark thought and awareness, we recognize the importance of ensuring that messaging resonates positively with the diverse audiences that may consume them.”
The ASA said that the adverts would have been seen by many people, including people from the US and eurozone countries, who “would have viewed their nation’s currency as being culturally significant.
“Although we acknowledged Wahed Invest’s view that they had not directly criticized a specific group, and that depictions of burning banknotes were commonly encountered, we considered the burning of banknotes would have caused serious offense to some viewers,” the regulator said.
“We therefore concluded that the ads were likely to cause serious offense.”
Jailed Italian reporter in Tehran freed, says Italy
ROME: An Italian journalist arrested in Iran and jailed for three weeks has been freed and is returning to Italy, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s office said on Wednesday.
“The plane taking journalist Cecilia Sala home took off from Tehran a few minutes ago” following “intense work through diplomatic and intelligence channels,” Meloni’s office said in a statement.
“Our compatriot has been released by the Iranian authorities and is on her way back to Italy. Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni expresses her gratitude to all those who helped make Cecilia’s return possible, allowing her to re-embrace her family and colleagues,” her office said.
Meloni personally informed Sala’s parents of her release by telephone, it added.
Sala, 29, was arrested on December 19, soon after the United States and Italy arrested two Iranian nationals over export violations linked to a deadly attack on American servicemen.
The journalist, who writes for the Italian daily Il Foglio and is the host of a news podcast produced by Chora Media, was kept in isolation in Tehran’s Evin prison.
Sala told her family she was forced to sleep on the floor in a cell with the lights permanently on.
Italy and Iran summoned each other’s ambassadors last week after Rome warned that efforts to secure her release were complicated.
Sala traveled to Iran on December 13 on a journalist’s visa. She was arrested six days later for “violating the law of the Islamic Republic of Iran,” said the country’s culture ministry, which oversees and accredits foreign journalists.
She had been due to return home the following day.
On Monday, Iran denied any link between Sala’s arrest and that of Iranian national Mohammad Abedini, detained in Italy in December at the behest of the United States over export violations linked to a deadly attack on US servicemen.
Surge in Telegram user data passed to French authorities
- Pavel Durov was arrested in Paris in August, where he was held for four days before being charged with various crimes, mostly linked to control of criminal content on Telegram
PARIS: Messaging service Telegram passed vastly more data on its users to French authorities in the second half of 2024 following founder Pavel Durov’s arrest in Paris, figures published by the platform showed.
The company said it handed over IP addresses or telephone numbers that Paris asked for in 210 cases in July-September and 673 in October-December.
That was up from just four in the first quarter and six in the second.
Some 2,072 users were affected by French requests for user data — again massively weighted toward the second half of 2024, with more than half in the fourth quarter alone.
Pavel Durov was arrested in Paris in August, where he was held for four days before being charged with various crimes, mostly linked to control of criminal content on Telegram.
He and his supporters have claimed that most French and European authorities’ requests for user data were simply not being sent to the right department at the company and therefore received no response.
Durov, who holds Russian, French and United Arab Emirates passports, has been barred from leaving French soil since he was charged.
That has not stopped Telegram from issuing updates to its moderation rules supposed to boost cooperation with investigators.
A source familiar with Durov’s case told AFP in December that the platform was responding more frequently to requests from the judicial system from both France and other countries.
