APRIL 21 — In the continuing saga of my baking adventures, I’ve been too busy making pâte à choux to think about incompetent politicians or troubling new developments.
As a friend says, it’s hard to be distracted by troubles when you bake.
Still, in between the cheese grating and the flour-wrangling, I noticed the troubling approach our communications minister and Finas were taking towards the silly online gambling ads.
Gambling is, by its very nature, predatory. It is why instead of hiring working actors, the gambling ad creators chose clueless “influencers.”
The thing about online influencers is that to them, social media is a tool for making money. Paid tweets, Instagram posts and pretending to just happen to run into a minister cycling is just par for the course.
As actor Bront Palarae pointed out, working actors would demand a contract, negotiate terms and often have an intermediary hammer out the details as well as advise them on the suitability and liabilities involved with a gig.
Influencers sometimes have management but not always. Many instead leave email addresses or say their DMs are open for offers.
Shadow of the state
But it’s not about the influencers. It’s about the heavy handed manner authorities dealt with it. It was an advertisement that technically shouldn’t have been aired but the makers knew how to circumvent loopholes.
Of late there have been many loud voices on social media voicing opinions that just a couple of years ago would have been reported to the authorities and a late night visit to the police station would be in your future.
I have friends who have had their phones and computers seized (and never returned) for saying things much less incendiary than what I see on Twitter and Facebook.
The thing is, I am not so sure these people are braver so much as they are foolhardy.
After all, I am of the generation who grew up seeing headlines about Ops Lalang and hearing quiet talk about the ISA.
The shadows are still here
While some people were upset at the treatment of Al-Jazeera journalists for reporting about migrant workers’ welfare, I can still remember how a former PM’s administration would often make things difficult for foreign journalists — even ordering a three-month ban on the Asian Wall Street Journal.
Nor was it that long ago when censors would use black markers on copy deemed offensive, such as unflattering coverage by The Economist.
What is offensive to me is that the gambling ad is being used as an excuse to accuse the media of abusing its freedom and for Finas to clamour for more enforcement power.
What is this mythical “media freedom” you speak of, Mr Minister? There are many topics the media still cannot even allude to without not-very-subtle threats about taking away their right to operate.
A return to the Dark Ages
It is true that under the last Pakatan Harapan administration, media felt a little less pressure and for a while there, Bernama coverage seemed to be a little confused — it was no longer feeling the need to slavishly churn out government-friendly coverage.
Now, however, it’s status quo, with certain reporting feeling more like free PR for certain politicians than actual news.
It looks to me as though we are being reminded, yet again, that things could revert to the days when opposition leaders and activists were confined to windowless cells and their lawyers denied access.
“We could/should lock you up if you won’t behave” seems to be the underlying message here and I do not like it.
A country is only as free as its media — being threatened with even more enforcement, with the addition of overpaid (rumours are that the new taxpayer-funder cybertroopers get paid RM15,000 a month) internet trolls harassing media for publishing anything not government-friendly enough is a sign of media oppression.
I do not want the dark days of fearing enforcers storming media offices and seizing computers to return but there are warning signs that some are just waiting for an excuse.
After all, people are being threatened just for questioning the rationale behind the current state of Emergency.
The government says it is watching the media; I think it’s on the media to keep an even closer watch on a government willing to use gambling ads as an excuse to curb media freedom.
This time, the people will be watching just as closely so perhaps some people should weigh that carefully as an election looms ever-nearer.
* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.
