Shaziman denies censorship goal

PUTRAJAYA: The Government's plan to register all bloggers using locally hosted websites is merely to collect data rather than to censor them, Deputy Energy, Water and Communications Minister Datuk Shaziman Abu Mansor said.

He said the Government's move should not be misconstrued as hindering bloggers from continuing with their activities.

"The plan to register bloggers is merely to assess the situation and keep track on how many bloggers there are in the country and on the information provided by them. It has nothing to do with censoring the contents in the blogs," he said, adding that the plan has yet to be finalised by the Government.

Shaziman also said Singapore had started registering its bloggers while Thailand, China and Middle Eastern countries practised censorship of their blogs.

He was clarifying his statement made in Parliament earlier this week that the plan to register bloggers was a move by the Government to prevent the spread of negative or malicious articles on the Internet.

Minister Datuk Seri Dr Lim Keng Yaik said it was up to bloggers to start an association, but that "rights come with responsibility."

"They have the rights and it's up to them, but are the bloggers practising responsibility? Who is disturbing their rights? If they are responsible, the rights are always theirs. But if they are not, then we will take away those rights," he said yesterday.