KUALA LUMPUR: The riots which broke out in North London on Aug 8 and spread quickly to other areas in England due to the publicity given by social media websites, has prompted the British government to put a limit and control on such websites.
Several social observers here also felt that the speedy dissemination of negative information through social websites like Twitter, Facebook and even Blackberry Messenger was something that should be given serious attention by all governments worldwide.
Institute of Mind Development (Inmind) chief executive officer Norizan Shariff said the London riots should serve as a lesson to Malaysia to be prepared to face such an incident should it recur in the future.
“Since the year 2000, we have felt the revolution of the Internet, it came with new challenges, not only to the government of Malaysia, but to other countries in the world, how do we handle this?” he said to Bernama here.
He was commenting on the riots which were allegedly triggered by people’s dissatisfaction over the death of Mark Duggan, 29, who was shot dead by the police in North London on Aug 4.
Norizan said social media like Twitter and Facebook had no controller or gatekeeper and their standard was not tantamount to news or the information published by the mainstream media.
“On one hand, we will say the freedom of information is vital, but on the other hand, how do we ensure that the people will screen the information from what’s right and what’s
not.
“Those who are media-illiterate will not know how to differentiate a propaganda, actual news or a mere lie to the extent of getting confused,” he
said.
He said despite the government’s commitment and efforts to provide first-class technology infrastructure, they also had to ensure that the people were equipped with first-class mindsets.
“The development of first-class infrastructure must be in line with media literacy to ensure that we are matured enough to control the revolution of technology, or else … it’ll be the same,” he said.
Social analyst Prof Dr Azmi Hassan said education on how to become a good net citizen should begin at earlier stage.
Azmi, who is Universiti Teknologi Malaysia Technology Policy and International Research Centre director, said the technology revolution was not supposed to be strictly controlled, but instead should be continuously accompanied by the inculcation of ethics to educate the public.
“The relevant authorities should give the right guidance to the public on the dos and don’ts based on the ethics of Internet users.
“Taking the London riots as example, we can see that they were planning some action using the social media which can hardly be detected by the authorities.
“This will not happen if they practise ethics in using the application,” he said.
Azmi also called on the government and private sector to take proactive actions in educating today’s and future generation to ensure that the abuse of these social media websites would not become rampant and uncontrollable. — Bernama