The bill’s scope is broad and it describes fake news as ‘any news, information, data and reports, which is or are wholly or partly false, whether in the form of features, visuals or audio recordings or any other form capable of suggesting words or ideas’. What is considered ‘false’ is not defined, leaving room for ambiguity and interpretation in the bill’s enforcement.
The bill makes it an offence to create and disseminate fake news, as well as to provide financial assistance to facilitate the spread of fake news. The maximum jail term for offenders is six years (reduced from 10 years during parliamentary debate) with a maximum fine of 500,000 Malaysian ringgit (US$129,000).
The brother of Malaysia’s Prime Minister Najib Razak, Nazir Razak, who is Chairman of the large ASEAN bank CIMB Group, reportedly wanted the anti-fake news bill to be deferred in order to allow more time for the legislation to be comprehensively drafted and debated. Nazir even said that the bill should not be rushed because its content concerns ‘the basic rights of individual expression’ and that ‘instilling fear of such draconian punishments based on ambiguous definitions will retard our society’.
The Chairman of Malaysia’s Human Rights Commission, Razali Ismail, warned that the bill could be used to exert even greater government control over the media. This was denied by the Youth and Sports Minister Khairy Jamaluddin, who said that the anti-fake news bill as mentioned in subclause 4(1) is not meant to restrict media but to prevent the spread of false news that may be detrimental to society and the country.
The ambiguity in the bill’s definition of fake news also raises the question of whether mythologies or legends can be considered fake news. For instance, the classic Malay historical tale Malay Annals (or Sejarah Melayu) is a mixture of fact and myth. It claims that the Malay royal families are descendants of the Macedonian King, Alexander the Great, despite there being no proof of any such link. Would the Malay Annals then be considered fake or half-truth under the anti-fake news bill? And would it then be right to ban the Malay Annals and an offence to circulate it? Though this example might seem out of left field, it demonstrates the potentially absurd scope for censorship enabled by the bill.
The real issue of fake news, according to President of the Malaysian Bar Council George Varughese, is about ‘the setting up of fake social media accounts and publishing news through it, of sending tailored messages based on someone’s online profile, and the funding of the same, and influencing outcomes of elections’. But these matters are not adequately addressed in the proposed legislation.
‘False news’ is already criminalised under Malaysia’s Printing Presses and Publications Act of 1984 and ‘false communication’ is criminalised under the Communications and Multimedia Act of 1998. These provisions beg the question of why there is any need to create a new law to criminalise fake or false news when existing laws are sufficient.
It is a good thing to combat fake news, which is spreading wildly across the globe and particularly via social media. But creating legislation to tackle fake news requires drafting clear definitions that accurately address the problem of fake news through comprehensive deliberation and public debate. The law needs input from the public in order to measure the impact and consequences of the law to Malaysian society as a whole. With Malaysia’s 14th general election to be held sometime on 9 May, time will soon tell whether concerns that the government seeks to use the anti-fake news bill to silence political opposition in the lead up to elections are indeed warranted.
Mohd Azizuddin Mohd Sani is Professor of Politics and International Relations at the School of International Studies, Universiti Utara Malaysia.