KUALA LUMPUR: The Malaysian government Monday proposed a “fake news” law which would carry a maximum 10-year jail term, including for articles published abroad, sparking fears of a crackdown on dissent as elections loom.
Governments in several countries, emboldened by US President Donald Trump’s fulminations against “fake news,” are considering such legislation. But rights groups warn that authoritarian regimes are likely to use such laws to silence opposing voices.
Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak has already been targeting critics in politics and the media who have attacked him over allegations that huge sums were looted from sovereign wealth fund 1MDB. Najib and the fund deny any wrongdoing.
The proposed law, introduced in parliament Monday, fueled fears the government is seeking to intensify a clampdown before a general election, which must be called by August but is widely expected sooner.
Opposition MP Charles Santiago said the bill was “a powerful weapon for the government to silence dissent in the country.”
“It is timed for the elections and to silence discussions on 1MDB,” he told AFP.
The bill, which described fake news as a “global concern,” includes a maximum 10 years in jail or fine of up to 500,000 ringgit ($130,000) for anyone guilty of creating or disseminating what authorities deem to be fake news.
It said anyone — including foreigners — who breaks the law outside the country by publishing fake news can face punishment in Malaysia, as long as what is published concerns Malaysia or a Malaysian citizen.
Fahmi Fadzil, spokesman for the opposition People’s Justice Party, said it suggested the government was seeking to target foreign media, which have led the coverage of 1MDB.
Phil Robertson, Asia deputy director for Human Rights Watch, accused the Malaysian government of employing “Trump-style scare tactics to grant itself powers to arbitrarily determine what people can say about Malaysia in the world.”
Amnesty International said the bill was “nothing but a blatant attempt to shield the government from peaceful criticism.”
It was no coincidence that it had been tabled with general elections just around the corner, said Amnesty’s regional director James Gomez in a statement.
Malaysia’s traditional pro-government media have reported on the 1MDB controversy only occasionally and in a muted and largely uncritical fashion.
Despite the concerns, cabinet minister Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar insisted the law “will not be abused,” adding: “It is not aimed at silencing critics.”
The bill must be approved by a majority in the 222-seat lower house and also in the upper house, and this is likely as both chambers are controlled by the ruling coalition. It needs to go through several readings in parliament before it passes.
Malaysia is ranked 144th out of 180 countries in Reporters Without Borders’ World Press Freedom Index.
The government has the power to revoke newspapers’ printing permits and regularly attacks critical media, particularly online news sites that have gained a following by reporting on official malfeasance and corruption.
Other countries in Southeast Asia have also been taking aim at what they claim is fake news.
Philippine lawmakers are mulling an anti-fake news bill introduced last year by a supporter of President Rodrigo Duterte, who has done battle with media outlets critical of his deadly drug war.
The proposed legislation reserves its harshest penalties, up to $382,500 and imprisonment of up to 20 years, for mass media organizations that refuse to take down fake news items.
In tightly-controlled Singapore, a parliamentary committee has been holding hearings this month as it examines potential measures to combat false online information, including legislation.
Malaysia proposes 10 years’ jail for ‘fake news’
Malaysia proposes 10 years’ jail for ‘fake news’
Getty Images, Shutterstock gear up for AI challenge with $3.7 bln merger
- Deal faces potential antitrust scrutiny
- Merger aims to cut costs and unlock new revenue streams as companies grapple with the rise of generative AI tools
The companies, two of the largest players in the licensed visual content industry, are betting that the combination will help them cut costs and grow their business by unlocking more revenue opportunities at a time when the growing use of generative AI tools such as Midjourney poses a threat to the industry.
Shutterstock shareholders can opt to receive either $28.80 per share in cash, or 13.67 shares of Getty, or a combination of 9.17 shares of Getty and $9.50 in cash for each Shutterstock share they own. The offer represents a deal value of more than $1 billion, according to Reuters calculations.
Shutterstock’s shares jumped 22.7 percent, while Getty was up 39.7 percent. Stocks of both companies have declined for at least the past four years, as the rising use of mobile cameras drives down demand for stock photography.
Getty CEO Craig Peters will lead the combined company, which will have annual revenues of nearly $2 billion and stands to benefit from Getty’s large library of visual content and the strong community on Shutterstock’s platform.
Peters downplayed the impact of AI on Tuesday and said that he was confident the merger would receive antitrust approval both in the United States and Europe.
“We don’t control the timing of (the approval), but we have a high confidence. This has been a situation where customers have not had choice. They’ve always had choice,” he said.
Some experts say US President-elect Donald Trump’s recent appointments to the Department of Justice Antitrust Division signal that there would be little change to the tough scrutiny that has come to define the regulator in recent years.
“With Gail Slater at the helm, the antitrust division is going to be a lot more aggressive under this Trump administration than it was under the first one,” said John Newman, professor of law at the University of Miami.
Regulators will examine how the deal impacts the old-school business model of selling images to legacy media customers, as well as the new business model of offering copyright-compliant generative-AI applications to the public.
The deal is expected to generate up to $200 million in cost savings three years after its close. Getty investors will own about 54.7 percent of the combined company, while Shutterstock stockholders will own the rest.
Getty competes with Reuters and the Associated Press in providing photos and videos for editorial use.
Israel extends closure of Al Jazeera’s West Bank office
- Israel suspended Al Jazeera’s Ramallah office for 45 days in September on charges of “incitement to and support for terrorism”
- Announcement comes days after Palestinian Authority also suspended the network’s broadcasts for four months
RAMALLAH, Palestinian Territories: Israeli authorities renewed a closure order for Al Jazeera’s Ramallah office in the occupied West Bank on Tuesday, days after the Palestinian Authority suspended the network’s broadcasts for four months.
An AFP journalist reported that Israeli soldiers posted the extension order Tuesday morning on the entrance of the building housing Al Jazeera’s offices in central Ramallah, a city under full Palestinian Authority security control.
The extension applies from December 22 and lasts 45 days.
In September, Israeli forces raided the Ramallah office and issued an initial 45-day closure order.
At the time, staff were instructed to leave the premises and take their personal belongings.
The move came months after Israel’s government approved a decision in May to ban Al Jazeera from broadcasting from Israel, also closing its offices for an initial 45-day period, which was extended for a fourth time by a Tel Aviv court in September.
Later in September, Israel’s government announced it was revoking the press credentials of Al Jazeera journalists in the country.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has long been at odds with Al Jazeera, a dispute that has escalated since the Gaza war began following Hamas’s attack on southern Israel on October 7.
The Israeli army has repeatedly accused the network’s reporters in Gaza of being “terrorist operatives” affiliated with Hamas or Islamic Jihad.
The Qatari channel denies the accusations, and says Israel systematically targets its staff in Gaza.
Meta replaces fact-checking with X-style community notes
- Meta cited bias and excessive content reviews as key factor in ending fact-checking program
- The social media company also announced plans to allow “more speech” by easing restrictions on discussions of mainstream topics like immigration and gender
LONDON: Facebook and Instagram owner Meta said Tuesday it’s scrapping its third-party fact-checking program and replacing it with a Community Notes program written by users similar to the model used by Elon Musk’s social media platform X.
Starting in the US, Meta will end its fact-checking program with independent third parties. The company said it decided to end the program because expert fact checkers had their own biases and too much content ended up being fact checked.
Instead, it will pivot to a Community Notes model that uses crowdsourced fact-checking contributions from users.
“We’ve seen this approach work on X – where they empower their community to decide when posts are potentially misleading and need more context,” Meta’s Chief Global Affairs Officer Joel Kaplan said in a blog post.
The social media company also said it plans to allow “more speech” by lifting some restrictions on some topics that are part of mainstream discussion in order to focus on illegal and “high severity violations” like terrorism, child sexual exploitation and drugs.
Meta said that its approach of building complex systems to manage content on its platforms has “gone too far” and has made “too many mistakes” by censoring too much content.
CEO Mark Zuckerberg acknowledged that the changes are in part sparked by political events including Donald Trump’s presidential election victory.
“The recent elections also feel like a cultural tipping point toward once again prioritizing speech,” Zuckerberg said in an online video.
Meta’s quasi-independent Oversight Board, which was set up to act as a referee on controversial content decisions, said it welcomed the changes and looked forward to working with the company “to understand the changes in greater detail, ensuring its new approach can be as effective and speech-friendly as possible.”
India press watchdog demands journalist murder probe
- Chandrakar’s body was found on January 3 after police tracked his mobile phone records following his family reporting him missing
NEW DELHI: India’s media watchdog has demanded a thorough investigation after a journalist’s battered body was found stuffed in a septic tank covered with concrete.
Freelance journalist Mukesh Chandrakar, 28, had reported widely on corruption and a decades-old Maoist insurgency in India’s central Chhattisgarh state, and ran a popular YouTube channel “Bastar Junction.”
The Press Council of India expressed “concern” over the suspected murder of Chandrakar, calling for a report on the “facts of the case” in a statement late Saturday.
Chandrakar’s body was found on January 3 after police tracked his mobile phone records following his family reporting him missing.
Three people have been arrested.
More than 10,000 people have died in the decades-long insurgency waged by Naxalite rebels, who say they are fighting for the rights of marginalized indigenous people in India’s resource-rich central regions.
Vishnu Deo Sai, chief minister of Chhattisgarh from the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), called Chandrakar’s death “heartbreaking” and promised the “harshest punishment” for those found responsible.
India was ranked 159 last year on the World Press Freedom Index, run by Reporters Without Borders.
Washington Post cartoonist quits after paper rejects sketch of Bezos bowing to Trump
- Ann Telnaes said that she’s never before had a cartoon rejected because of its inherent messaging and that such a move is dangerous for a free press
- Wapo exec says the cartoon was rejected only to avoid repetition, because the paper had just published a column on the same topic as the cartoon
A cartoonist has decided to quit her job at the Washington Post after an editor rejected her sketch of the newspaper’s owner and other media executives bowing before President-elect Donald Trump.
Ann Telnaes posted a message Friday on the online platform Substack saying that she drew a cartoon showing a group of media executives bowing before Trump while offering him bags of money, including Post owner and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.
Telnaes wrote that the cartoon was intended to criticize “billionaire tech and media chief executives who have been doing their best to curry favor with incoming President-elect Trump.” Several executives, Bezos among them, have been spotted at Trump’s Florida club Mar-a-Lago. She accused them of having lucrative government contracts and working to eliminate regulations.
Telnaes said that she’s never before had a cartoon rejected because of its inherent messaging and that such a move is dangerous for a free press.
“As an editorial cartoonist, my job is to hold powerful people and institutions accountable,” Telnaes wrote. “For the first time, my editor prevented me from doing that critical job. So I have decided to leave the Post. I doubt my decision will cause much of a stir and that it will be dismissed because I’m just a cartoonist. But I will not stop holding truth to power through my cartooning, because as they say ‘Democracy dies in darkness.’”
The Association of American Editorial Cartoonists issued a statement Saturday accusing the Post of “political cowardice” and asking other cartoonists to post Telnaes’ sketch with the hashtag #StandWithAnn in a show of solidarity.
“Tyranny ends at pen point,” the association said. “It thrives in the dark, and the Washington Post simply closed its eyes and gave in like a punch-drunk boxer.”
The Post’s communications director, Liza Pluto, provided The Associated Press on Saturday with a statement from David Shipley, the newspaper’s editorial page editor. Shipley said in the statement that he disagrees with Telnaes’ “interpretation of events.”
He said he decided to nix the cartoon because the paper had just published a column on the same topic as the cartoon and was set to publish another.
“Not every editorial judgment is a reflection of a malign force. ... The only bias was against repetition,” Shipley said.
