Abstract
Online news portals such as Malaysiakini, Malaysia Today and many others have been instrumental in providing alternative news and information to the Malaysian public. These portals are currently treated differently from print media as they need not procure a licence or permit before publishing online content. Conversely, print media proprietors are mandated by the Printing Presses and Publications Act 1984 to hold valid printing licences and publication permits before offering their services. Further, the presence of the no censorship guarantee of the Internet appears to render online news portals and other online publications to be free from legislative control. This is undesirable as there appears to be two different sets of regulatory frameworks for traditional media and new media. Hence, this paper will trace the historical development of online news portals in Malaysia, analyse the existing regulatory regime which govern print media and new media, and examine the potential application of these laws to regulate online news portals. By adopting a qualitative approach, the study employed a combination of doctrinal and comparative analysis. A doctrinal analysis was adapted to explore the current regulatory framework in order to address the legal predicament faced by online news portals. Further, the study applied a comparative analysis method by examining current practices and experience in the United Kingdom (UK). For this reason, the study scrutinised relevant statutory provisions and other secondary sources comprising textbooks, academic journals, seminar papers, and other pertinent materials found in newspapers and/or reputable websites. In conclusion, it is submitted that the same set of laws and regulations should be applied to govern print media and online news portals here, similar to the practice adopted by the Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO) in the UK.
Highlights
The technological convergence of the telecommunications, broadcasting, and computing industries into a single digital bitstream (Blackman, 1998) and the mounting popularity and growing availability of a vast array of new media services have been reported to significantly affect the distribution and consumption of news in Malaysia (Ahmad & Buyong, 2017)
Online news portals are at present excluded from acquiring content applications service licences, they are still bound by a myriad of post-publication laws on content regulations under the Communications and Multimedia Act 1998 (CMA) or other prevailing statutes such as the Defamation Act 1957, the Sedition Act 1948, the Official Secrets Act 1972, and many others
There is no guarantee that the exemption order will be kept in perpetuity as the Minister is statutorily empowered to vary or even repeal such order in the future. This is best illustrated by the press statement of the former Minister, who was reported to have commented on the proposal to regulate online news portals by saying that the government was looking to introduce amendments to the CMA and Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission Act 1998 (MCMCA) (Carvalho et al, 2015)
Summary
The technological convergence of the telecommunications, broadcasting, and computing industries into a single digital bitstream (Blackman, 1998) and the mounting popularity and growing availability of a vast array of new media services have been reported to significantly affect the distribution and consumption of news in Malaysia (Ahmad & Buyong, 2017). These developments have resulted in the transposition of readership from traditional media to various types of online media services, in particular, online news portals and social media (Nain, 2018).
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