AUG 1 — The wheel was invented around 3500 BC, or more than five thousand years ago. It changed life as they knew it then.

From agriculture to travel, productivity exponentially increased. However, good and bad permeate advancements.

The wheel regrettably transported harms further and activated those harms in fiercer forms. Duality is inexorable.

Ploughs, carts, cannons and finally missiles were wheeled to laughs and cries, or both simultaneously.

I preface the wheel to contextualise the Internet — even if their affectations differ astronomically. Also to recognise the government’s conundrums and cheeky opportunities.

With all great things on the Internet, there are cautionary tales of corporate greed exploiting the weak, campaigns of miscommunication to numb voters and existentialist threats of AI (artificial intelligence) to multiply standing problems while generating new ones.

We cannot return the wheel to the infinite like the Infinity Stones. We cannot opt to return to the time of not knowing. And even if it were possible, how many of us want to rise at dawn for backbreaking work to till the land?

The wheel stays. The Internet stays. Meanwhile, the Internet deposits wheel making tutorials in the cloud, just in case.

In an earnest effort to protect their populace from unregulated social media — the main thrust connecting humans to the Internet — governments from London to Sydney engage, litigate and erect laws.

But the technology is too fluid and law-making too restrictive or unimaginative to counter adequately. Silently, lawmakers know it’s a protracted mess to be left unresolved in the short term.

This does not dent the appetite for drama. Corporations pull at one end and government at the other, both exclaiming they are for the people. The distracted masses act as both victims and perpetrators as they fill platforms old and new with content.

And here comes the Malaysian government’s new licensing requirements for social media firms with more than eight million local users.

Malaysia’s efforts are not unique nor isolated but it worries nevertheless. Especially when phrases like kill switch are bandied about.

No sensible government ignores social media and its job to regulate it, however on the same token, every government can deploy censorship to protect its own rule, to be selfish.

This is the quintessential slippery-slope. If faith is invested in the Unity Government to the extent all of us believe it uses the expected laws only to advance Malaysia and not itself, would PAS-dominated Perikatan Nasional (PN) display the same restraint if in power?

On cue, the government reassures that it is platforms, not people, that need a licence to use the Internet. Yet, the question niggles. If a platform fails to procure a licence, does it cease to operate in Malaysia?

Our past

RTM used to stop TV transmission before midnight till the late 1980s.

“Enough screen time, Malaysians, time for sleep,” seemed the advice from Big Brother. Today, your smartphone tells you how much screen time for the day, week and month you have used.

In my idyllic youth, many days were spent chilling at Mambang’s place. To abuse his dad’s vinyl collection after reading the crisp, just delivered paper. The one-paper days of the 90s.

Because The Star already gave up its independence in the aftermath of the Operasi Lalang era — when it was suspended for five months by the home ministry. Reading the New Straits Times for a sliver of actual news since the other paper will say far less explains how deranged those days were.

The late 90s, the Internet surged but mostly spluttered in the country, due to low connectivity and data speed. People were content with email forwards of text articles, and did backflips in joy when Yahoo Groups! showed up.

The first truly Internet elections in Malaysia was 2008, and no surprise it coincides with the end of two-third rule by any coalition and sporadic falls of state governments.

Social media has dictated affairs in our last three general elections and there is the feeling — not entirely unjustified when looking at the 2016 and 2020 US presidential elections — an unfettered electronic communication space may work against the interest of fair and equitable elections.

Out here in the fields

Sitting in the train, looking at Malaysians committed to their smartphones — eyes on screen come what may — misdirects observers to assume peak literacy. Hours on the platforms hardly increase personal knowledge. The algorithm seeks to sate, not challenge users. Cat videos win hands down over scientific or historical explainers.

Divisive and irrational content thrives in instant gratification focussed platforms like TikTok. Worryingly, all other platforms pursue plans to copy the Tencent owned platform due to its superior results.

But for the policy makers, the worry is about users entering rabbit holes, and spiralling out. Begin an interest in primal subjects like race supremacy and the echo chamber reinforces with content the user prefers — those absolute, simplistic and closer to the common denominator.

Pakatan-BN champions a nuanced Malay-spine leadership which creaks with inconsistencies due to its ideological gaps. The super coalition feels that is the only way to steer the ship and to fend off dogmatic PAS, which has Bersatu tagging along.

Thus, the attraction to license social media operations. The platforms are already flooded even before factoring AI-generated content.

Naturally, Pakatan-BN wants the option to upend PN’s social media if it takes off too well during the election season.

It also wants safeguards dealing with independent vitriol towards Pakatan-BN.

But in doing all this protecting, do they risk turning into tormentors themselves?

Where’s the suit, Iron Man?

Abuse in social media is real. It is also inevitable because there are an amazingly large number of abusive people and social media only facilitates not recruits them.

Government points to cyberbullying and scams.

To individuals who believe there are means to cut out immediately and effectively “bad things” from society through censorship at this stage of information technology’s evolution, they are sorely misinformed.

If in the old days, the bully waited at the schoolyard and you worried about him only during breaktime, today the bully lives in your devices and roams freely.

There is no off-time. Therefore, using censorship — when information coils you from every edifice and through all your orifices — is akin to scratching the fin to prevent the shark from dismembering you.

There is too much coming too fast from all directions.

The ultimate protection is to better equip the citizen to protect himself. To teach the man to fish analogy. Education is always the silver bullet.

Parallelly, the government has to recalibrate its attitude of it being right and omnipotent.

Why?

To be incessantly authoritative about information — saying what to believe or not — is to train your people to be subservient to authority even if in the various instances they benefit from being informed.

The subservient are suspect when other actors — unfortunately, malicious in the majority — speak to them with authority. They just give in to those who look powerful even without evidence.

Am I sure?

It does seem fantastical to suggest the manner to combat the disinformation in a freer and even freer information environment is to foster more freedom among the people.

Yet it is true.

Freer people possess cynicism which is the strongest tool available to beat down disinformation and outright lies.

Refuse silence

It is unforgiving to govern forthrightly in this information age. Governments are tempted to adopt the weapons of their enemies to protect themselves. They must remember they are in public service to protect citizens.

The age of censorship in data connected societies is nearly over.

Almost all information is available, good and bad. And it will continue to be so. The ratio remains even if the volume grows exponential.

Partnerships with corporations and voluntary coordination gains more traction than the fear of a licensing rod.

However our government chooses to proceed, it surely must recognise this.

There is no kill switch. Chasing for it all over cyberspace is a futile use of government resources.