[ooni-talk] OONI & Sinar Project Report: The State of Internet Censorship in Malaysia

[Maria Xynou]

Hi Oonitarians,

Today OONI and Sinar Project jointly released a report that examines
internet censorship in Malaysia over the last few months.

This study involved the collection of network measurements through the
use of ooniprobe in an attempt to collect data that can serve as
evidence of internet censorship events, as well as the examination of
relevant laws and policies.

Our report can be found here:
https://ooni.torproject.org/post/malaysia-report/

The key findings of our study include:

1. We found *39 different websites* to be blocked through the *DNS
injection of block pages*. These sites include:

- *News outlets*, *blogs*, and *medium.com* for covering the *1MDB scandal*.

- A site that expresses heavy criticism towards Islam (and which, in the
Malaysian context, can be viewed as inciting hatred towards Islam).

- Popular torrenting sites (such as thepiratebay.org).

- A popular online dating site.

- Pornographic sites.

- Gambling sites.

2. This study provides evidence of *politically motivated censorship*
(since news outlets and blogs covering the 1MDB scandal were found to be
blocked). This censorship though has vaguely been justified by Malaysian
authorities on the grounds of "national security" under the
Communications and Multimedia Act (CMA) 1998.

3. The pornographic and gambling sites that were found to be blocked
might be part of the thousands of websites that were recently announced
to be blocked by Malaysian authorities (reference:
http://english.astroawani.com/malaysia-news/mcmc-blocks-over-5-000-websites-various-offences-jailani-125528).
In any case, the blocking of these sites can be justified under
Malaysia's laws and regulations (see "Legal environment" section of the
report).

4. Some previously blocked sites (Bersih rally websites) were found to
be accessible as part of this study. Social media and censorship
circumvention tools also appeared to be accessible.

5. Even though Sharia law poses restrictions to LGBTI rights, all LGBTI
sites that we tested were found to be accessible.

Please contact us with any questions you may have.

All the best,

Maria. 

-- 
Maria Xynou
Research and Partnerships Coordinator
Open Observatory of Network Interference (OONI)
https://ooni.torproject.org/
PGP Key Fingerprint: 2DC8 AFB6 CA11 B552 1081 FBDE 2131 B3BE 70CA 417E

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