[Civicness] Uh… whut?

This has got to be one of the funniest things I’ve read in a long time. But it also underlines the shallow understanding of most people who aren’t aware of how the Internet works. They don’t get the differences between a blog, a news portal, or in some cases, even a comment!

Here, have a read, watch out for the bolded parts, and lemme know if I’m too condescending of some people’s ignorance or gullibility in swallowing everything hook, line and sinker. PS: Said group at least had the courtesy to apologise when their error was exposed.

False police report lodged against Malaysiakini

A movement calling itself Gagasan Melayu Perak (GMP) has lodged a police report against Malaysiakini over a news report which the website had not published.

In the police report, GMP president Mohd Hilmi Ismail claimed that Malaysiakini had published an article insulting the Sultan of Perak, Sultan Azlan Shah, and Raja Muda of Perak, Raja Dr Nazrin Shah.

The said article, headlined ‘Raja Nazrin defends monarchy against ridicule,’ was allegedly published by Malaysiakini on Tuesday.

But a check revealed that no such report was published by the online news daily.

Its Bahasa Malaysia section had however uploaded a Malay version of the story based on a Bernama report but this was published on April 19.

Mohd Hilmi (right) and his group lodged the report at the Sungai Senam police station near Ipoh at 5pm yesterday.

According to Bernama, Mohd Hilmi had told reporters that the police report was lodged because GMP considered the news carried by the website as rude and discourteous to the monarchy in the state.

He also said GMP hoped that the Ministry of Information, Communications and Culture would take action against the website for abusing information technology without considering the implication on national security.

‘I was informed by my staff’

Malaysiakini contacted GMP this morning to seek clarification over the police report and was told by Mohd Hilmi that he was not aware if Malaysiakini had carried such a report before going to the police.

“I didn’t know about the said article. I was informed by my staff and I lodged a report,” he said.

When asked if he realised that he could have tarnished Malaysiakini reputation with his police report, Mohd Hilmi asked: “Isn’t Malaysiakini the same as Malaysian Today or some other blogs?”

Malaysiakini has asked Mohd Hilmi to publicly apologise for making the false report.

The website is also mulling possible action against Mohd Hilmi and GMP.

According to a report in Utusan Malaysia, the offending article was a comment posted by a reader in reaction to ‘Raja Nazrin defends monarchy against ridicule’.

The reader, who used the pseudonym Pasok, disparaged the Perak palace and the sultan.

GMP apologises to Malaysiakini

About an hour after contacting Mohd Hilmi, GMP’s legal advisor Nor Ali Nordin called Malaysiakini to apologise for their error.

“My president (Mohd Hilmi) just spoke to me and we would like to apologise to Malaysiakini for the mistake in naming the website in our police report,” he said.

He also said that he and other GMP members will be going to the Sungai Senam police station at 3pm today to rectify their original police report.

“We will do the necessary thing to remove Malaysiakini’s name from the report and replace it with the website which had carried the offending article,” he added.

He also said that GMP has informed the local dailies of the mistake and got their assurance to publish a correction.

Bernama and Utusan Malaysia (above), among others, today published the story about the police report against Malaysiakini.

One thought on “[Civicness] Uh… whut?

Comments are closed.