“We made the biggest mistake in thinking that it was not important," - Pak Lah
Internet is a 'corridor' of information and information can do many things.
This is the plain basics.
Is the internet a major factor?
YES - when the boiling point has been reached. When that happens
some of the water will overflow to the ground while some will
travel at high speed as a deadly invisible steam.
Information will change the society - how fast that will
happen will depend on your hard labour, your ingredient
and your transport mechanism.
NewsKini is an idea of that transport mechanism......
Internet is a killer app of this century - just look at how Google
has managed to topple Microsoft in just a very short time. And
Google is actually a transport mechanism too....
Source:
APac
Malaysian PM admits his “biggest mistake”
Wed, April 02 2008
Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad BadawiIgnored by government-linked mainstream media, Malaysia’s opposition waged an aggressive online election campaign using blogs and news websites.
For example, 67-year-old opposition Democratic Action Party chairman Lim Kit Siang ran three blogs, which were meticulously updated with multiple posts every day. Like many other opposition leaders, he was able to reach out to young urban and educated people, many who were voting for the first time. Lim won a parliamentary seat in Ipoh Timor.
Last week Malaysia’s Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, whose position has been considerably weakened after his coalition’s drubbing at the polls, admitted that his ruling coalition made a blunder by underestimating the power of the Internet.
“We made the biggest mistake in thinking that it was not important,” he said. The coalition suffered its worst results ever in March 8 polls that left five states and a third of parliamentary seats in opposition hands.
“We certainly lost the Internet war, the cyber war,” Abdullah said in a speech to an investment conference. “It was a serious misjudgement. We thought that the newspapers, the print media and the television were supposed to be important, but the young people were looking at SMSes and blogs.”
His comments constitute a major about-face for the government, which had vilified bloggers, calling them liars and threatening them with detention without trial under draconian internal security laws.
Even as he spoke, his critics in the United Malays National Organisation (Umno), his power base, were moving to force him out of office. To make matters worse, Umno’s 3.2 million members have also received a poison-pen letter listing his faults. It is not known if he was aware of these moves when he was making his speech.
The poison-pen letter, which hopes to ignite hatred against Abdullah, talks about the manipulations of the government by his son-in-law Khairy Jamaluddin and his associates, the PM’s alleged willingness to appease Singapore and his inability to fight rising crime in the country.
But in his speech, Abdullah said that in line with reform promises after the humiliating election results, the government would “respond effectively” and move to empower young Malaysians. “It was painful . . . but it came at the right time, not too late,” he said. The PM admitted that it was also his inability to push through reforms that earned voters’ ire.
The government, he said, had been given one last chance to prove itself and is ready to change to address the people’s concerns. He promised to implement bold agendas to restore public and investor confidence.
The impact of young voters on the electoral results was particularly underscored in Selangor, which fell to the opposition. The state has about 143,000 new voters out of a total electorate of more than 1.5 million.
http://www.theedgedaily.com
26-03-2008: Pak Lah says ignoring Internet is his biggest mistake
by Kevin Tan
KUALA LUMPUR: Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi said his “biggest mistake” in the recent general election was to ignore the political campaigns waged by the opposition on the Internet.
“We certainly lost the Internet war, the cyber war. It was a serious misjudgement. We made the biggest mistake in thinking that it was not important.
“We thought that the newspapers, the print media, the television were supposed to be important, but the young people were looking at SMS (short messaging service) and blogs,” he said at the Invest Malaysia 2008 Conference here yesterday.
Following the dismal election results for Barisan Nasional (BN), Abdullah said the government would “respond effectively”. “It was painful... but it came at the right time, not too late.”
In his keynote address, Abdullah also said the message from the general election was that he did not move fast enough in pushing forward the reforms he had promised to undertake.
“I thank the Malaysian people for this message. Point well made and point taken,” he said.
However, he also pointed out that the BN government was not constrained by dogmatism or rigidity and it was more than ready to listen to the people.
“Above all, it is a government that is ready to change and address the people’s concerns and grievances,” he said, adding that the government was now already in the rejuvenation process with the appointment of a new Cabinet last week.
Abdullah also said he intended to implement a “bold agenda” for addressing the concerns of the people as expressed through the ballot box.
Besides introducing a package to alleviate the burdens of the lower income group, he will drastically reduce crime, step up the fight against corruption, support reforms of the judiciary and ensure a fair number of places of worship for Malaysians of all religions.
“These are the major issues that resonated with the voters, regardless of ethnicity, background, gender or age,” he said.
Malaysia PM says 'big mistake' to ignore cyber-campaign
Mar 25, 2008
KUALA LUMPUR (AFP) — Malaysia's premier Abdullah Ahmad Badawi said Tuesday his "biggest mistake" in disastrous elections was to ignore cyber-campaigning on the Internet which was seized by the opposition.
The powerful Barisan Nasional coalition suffered its worst-ever results in March 8 polls that left five states and a third of parliamentary seats in opposition hands.
The opposition, which was largely ignored by government-linked mainstream media, instead waged an enormously successful online campaign using blogs, news websites and SMS text messages.
"We certainly lost the Internet war, the cyber-war," Abdullah said in in a speech to an investment conference.
"It was a serious misjudgement. We made the biggest mistake in thinking that it was not important," he said.
"We thought that the newspapers, the print media, the television was supposed to be important, but the young people were looking at SMS and blogs."
The comments are a major about-face for the government, which had vilified bloggers, calling them liars and threatening them with detention without trial under draconian internal security laws.
In line with promises to reform after the humiliating election results, Abdullah said the government would "respond effectively" and move to empower young Malaysians.
"It was painful ... but it came at the right time, not too late," he said.
Malaysia's mainstream media are mostly part-owned by parties in the ruling coalition, and what was seen as biased coverage in the run-up to last month's vote alienated voters and boosted demand for alternative news sources.
Media watchdog Reporters Without Borders ranks Malaysia 124 out of 169 on its worldwide press freedom index. It says mainstream media are "often compelled to ignore or to play down" opposition events.
Technology March 6, 2008, 10:16AM EST
Malaysian Ruling Party Lost in Cyberspace
As the nation votes on Mar. 8, analysts say the Barisan Nasional coalition is losing the political debate to scores of anti-government Web sites and blogs
by Lee Min Keong
As the nation goes to the polls on Mar. 8, analysts say Malaysia's ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition is losing the political debate in cyberspace to the scores of anti-government Web sites and blogs campaigning against the BN.
Ironically, the incumbent coalition is poised to win the electoral battle on the back of strong support from rural, non-Internet savvy constituents.
While the opposition admits they are unlikely to deny BN a victory this election, they are optimistic the proliferation of anti-government sites and blogs, as well as the YouTube phenomenon, has created a chink in the armor of the political behemoth which has ruled Malaysia uninterrupted for the past 50 years.
Though the BN has vast financial and manpower resources compared to the opposition, the ruling coalition is less savvy and nimble when it comes to effectively utilizing information and communications technology (ICT) and the Internet to upstage its political foes.
While the main opposition party, the Democratic Action Party (DAP), has unleashed its e-election campaign, the dominant BN-component party Umno, has yet to do likewise.
Senior Umno politician and BN Backbenchers Club chairman Shahrir Abdul Samad confirmed the Malay-based Umno does not have an Internet strategy for the coming election. He told ZDNet Asia in a phone interview that while the Internet was a useful "window" for communication, the election candidates still needed to travel across Malaysia, speak at rallies, visit community centers and meet the constituents face-to- face. Member of Parliament for Malaysian city Johor Bahru, Shahrir is one of few Internet-savvy senior Umno leaders who blog.
Yip Wai Fong, advocacy officer at Centre for Independent Journalism (CIJ), said the ruling coalition has been "very complacent" with regard to using the Internet in the political arena. "The BN government has been quite slow in using the Internet," Yip said in a phone interview. "It has been too comfortable relying on the mainstream media over the decades."
She explained that BN's biggest constituency is the rural Malay heartland, where there is low Internet penetration and a non-IT savvy populace, and the pro-government mainstream media exerts greater influence compared to the Internet.
Yip said the BN, which comprises 14 political parties, has been slow to adapt their messages for the Internet, and to respond quickly to the barrage of allegations and criticisms from the host of pro-opposition news Web sites and blogs.
In contrast, the DAP appointed popular blogger Jeff Ooi to organize and head the party's e-campaign for the election. The party operates a Web site dedicated to provide election information and collaterals, including profiles of all its candidates, the party manifesto, YouTube-linked video clips and links to all the party's bloggers.
DAP candidates are also raising much-needed election funding through their individual Web sites, and complementing this effort with the use of (SMS) text messages to propagate its political views and messages to thousands of voters via the mobile platform.
The opposition's reliance on the Internet and communication systems is borne out of sheer necessity. Ooi, who is standing for a parliamentary seat in Penang, said: "DAP's e-election initiative is a platform to circumvent the media blackout on the opposition's messages imposed by the government-controlled mainstream media."
Internet paths way to information
Without access to the mass media, opposition parties were somewhat handicapped in past elections. The emergence of the Internet has now provided the opposition and anti-government groups an alternative platform to spread their political memorandum.
CIJ's Yip said the Internet has benefited the opposition much more than the ruling coalition. "Online news sites, blog sites, YouTube and citizen journalism have definitely cracked the BN government's monopoly on 'truth'," she said. CIJ, together with Writers' Alliance for Independence (WAMI), are monitoring elections coverage together with Charter2000-Aliran and a group of citizen volunteers.
"The government (BN) now has to respond to what its opponents say on the Internet. Previously, it could just ignore the opposition's allegations," she said. In today's connected world, however, the government they can no longer afford to do that, Yip said.
Steven Gan, editor-in-chief of Malaysiakini, said in a phone interview: "Previously, most Malaysians were dependent on the mainstream media for news. Now, with the Internet, they have many options for alternative, independent news. This allows them to make an informed choice in the elections." Malaysiakini is an independent online news provider, and its growing popularity is a cause of worry for the BN.
According to Malaysiakini CEO Premesh Chandran, the online news portal's paid subscriber base increased by 40 percent in the last three months.
"Last year, we had an average of 100,000 unique visitors accessing our news Web site. Since the beginning of the year, to date, the number of daily unique visitors has shot up to 150,000," Chandran told ZDNet Asia in a phone interview. He estimates Malaysiakini articles are read by about 500,000 people each month.
Reaching the young
Thanks also to the Internet, Malaysia's Generation Y voters are becoming more politically conscious and are expected to have a bigger say in the outcome of future elections.
"The mainstream newspapers don't provide fair coverage to the opposition during the election campaign," J. Yeo, who lectures at a local university, said in an interview. This has prompted Yeo, who is in her late 20s, to seek out information from the alternative online news sites such as Malaysiakini and political blogs.
Likewise, IT consultant Randy Tan who is in his twenties, admits he has lost faith in the local media's coverage of political issues. Tan told ZDNet Asia he now gets his news from Malaysiakini, Malaysia Today, Ooi's blog Screenshots and various political blogs.
Despite the BN's lack of Web presence, Umno's Shahrir said the Internet will have "minimal impact" on the outcome of the coming election.
"Elections are about votes, not [page] hits," he said, and argued that even in highly-connected countries such as Singapore, the Internet did not stop the ruling People's Action Party's (PAP) from capturing a hefty majority.
CIJ's Yip said she considered the election a success if the opposition comes close to denying the BN its customary two-thirds parliamentary majority. In the 2004 polls, the BN won 90 percent of the 219 parliamentary seats contested.
Malaysiakini's Gan said as the country's Internet penetration rate grows, the Web and new technologies will play a major role in Malaysian politics.
About 10.9 million voters will cast their votes in Saturday's election.
Lee Min Keong is a freelance IT writer based in Malaysia.
Internet steers new way in M'sian election
By Lee Min Keong, ZDNet Asia
06/03/2008
URL: http://www.zdnetasia.com/news/internet/0,39044908,62038595,00.htm
MALAYSIA--As the nation goes to the polls on Mar. 8, analysts say Malaysia's ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition is losing the political debate in cyberspace to the scores of anti-government Web sites and blogs campaigning against the BN.
Ironically, the incumbent coalition is poised to win the electoral battle on the back of strong support from rural, non-Internet savvy constituents.
While the opposition admits they are unlikely to deny BN a victory this election, they are optimistic the proliferation of anti-government sites and blogs, as well as the YouTube phenomenon, has created a chink in the armor of the political behemoth which has ruled Malaysia uninterrupted for the past 50 years.
Though the BN has vast financial and manpower resources compared to the opposition, the ruling coalition is less savvy and nimble when it comes to effectively utilizing information and communications technology (ICT) and the Internet to upstage its political foes.
While the main opposition party, the Democratic Action Party (DAP), has unleashed its e-election campaign, the dominant BN-component party Umno, has yet to do likewise.
Senior Umno politician and BN Backbenchers Club chairman Shahrir Abdul Samad confirmed the Malay-based Umno does not have an Internet strategy for the coming election. He told ZDNet Asia in a phone interview that while the Internet was a useful "window" for communication, the election candidates still needed to travel across Malaysia, speak at rallies, visit community centers and meet the constituents face-to- face. Member of Parliament for Malaysian city Johor Bahru, Shahrir is one of few Internet-savvy senior Umno leaders who blog.
Yip Wai Fong, advocacy officer at Centre for Independent Journalism (CIJ), said the ruling coalition has been "very complacent" with regard to using the Internet in the political arena. "The BN government has been quite slow in using the Internet," Yip said in a phone interview. "It has been too comfortable relying on the mainstream media over the decades."
She explained that BN's biggest constituency is the rural Malay heartland, where there is low Internet penetration and a non-IT savvy populace, and the pro-government mainstream media exerts greater influence compared to the Internet.
Yip said the BN, which comprises 14 political parties, has been slow to adapt their messages for the Internet, and to respond quickly to the barrage of allegations and criticisms from the host of pro-opposition news Web sites and blogs.
In contrast, the DAP appointed popular blogger Jeff Ooi to organize and head the party's e-campaign for the election. The party operates a Web site dedicated to provide election information and collaterals, including profiles of all its candidates, the party manifesto, YouTube-linked video clips and links to all the party's bloggers.
DAP candidates are also raising much-needed election funding through their individual Web sites, and complementing this effort with the use of (SMS) text messages to propagate its political views and messages to thousands of voters via the mobile platform.
The opposition's reliance on the Internet and communication systems is borne out of sheer necessity. Ooi, who is standing for a parliamentary seat in Penang, said: "DAP's e-election initiative is a platform to circumvent the media blackout on the opposition's messages imposed by the government-controlled mainstream media."
Internet paths way to information
Without access to the mass media, opposition parties were somewhat handicapped in past elections. The emergence of the Internet has now provided the opposition and anti-government groups an alternative platform to spread their political memorandum.
CIJ's Yip said the Internet has benefited the opposition much more than the ruling coalition. "Online news sites, blog sites, YouTube and citizen journalism have definitely cracked the BN government's monopoly on 'truth'," she said. CIJ, together with Writers' Alliance for Independence (WAMI), are monitoring elections coverage together with Charter2000-Aliran and a group of citizen volunteers.
"The government (BN) now has to respond to what its opponents say on the Internet. Previously, it could just ignore the opposition's allegations," she said. In today's connected world, however, the government they can no longer afford to do that, Yip said.
Steven Gan, editor-in-chief of Malaysiakini, said in a phone interview: "Previously, most Malaysians were dependent on the mainstream media for news. Now, with the Internet, they have many options for alternative, independent news. This allows them to make an informed choice in the elections." Malaysiakini is an independent online news provider, and its growing popularity is a cause of worry for the BN.
According to Malaysiakini CEO Premesh Chandran, the online news portal's paid subscriber base increased by 40 percent in the last three months.
"Last year, we had an average of 100,000 unique visitors accessing our news Web site. Since the beginning of the year, to date, the number of daily unique visitors has shot up to 150,000," Chandran told ZDNet Asia in a phone interview. He estimates Malaysiakini articles are read by about 500,000 people each month.
Reaching the young
Thanks also to the Internet, Malaysia's Generation Y voters are becoming more politically conscious and are expected to have a bigger say in the outcome of future elections.
"The mainstream newspapers don't provide fair coverage to the opposition during the election campaign," J. Yeo, who lectures at a local university, said in an interview. This has prompted Yeo, who is in her late 20s, to seek out information from the alternative online news sites such as Malaysiakini and political blogs.
Likewise, IT consultant Randy Tan who is in his twenties, admits he has lost faith in the local media's coverage of political issues. Tan told ZDNet Asia he now gets his news from Malaysiakini, Malaysia Today, Ooi's blog Screenshots and various political blogs.
Despite the BN's lack of Web presence, Umno's Shahrir said the Internet will have "minimal impact" on the outcome of the coming election.
"Elections are about votes, not [page] hits," he said, and argued that even in highly-connected countries such as Singapore, the Internet did not stop the ruling People's Action Party's (PAP) from capturing a hefty majority.
CIJ's Yip said she considered the election a success if the opposition comes close to denying the BN its customary two-thirds parliamentary majority. In the 2004 polls, the BN won 90 percent of the 219 parliamentary seats contested.
Malaysiakini's Gan said as the country's Internet penetration rate grows, the Web and new technologies will play a major role in Malaysian politics.
About 10.9 million voters will cast their votes in Saturday's election.
Lee Min Keong is a freelance IT writer based in Malaysia.
Techies sidestep Malaysian govt
By Lee Min Keong, ZDNet Asia
15/11/2007
URL: http://www.zdnetasia.com/news/business/0,39044229,62034449,00.htm
MALAYSIA--As police fired tear gas and water cannons to disperse thousands of activists Saturday in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysians had to turn to the Internet in search of news reports and updates.
On Nov. 10, some reported 30,000 people staged a rally in the country's capital, calling for electoral reforms to ensure a free and fair general election which is expected early-2008. Organized by Bersih (which means "clean" in Malay), the rally involved a coalition of some 70 non-governmental organizations and opposition parties.
The Malaysian government was "caught with its pants down" in its attempt to impose a media blackout.
-- Jeff Ooi
Blogger-cum-politician
Mainstream print and broadcast media were advised to play down the incident, and most took heed.
Undeterred by the government-imposed media blackout, many turned instead to alternative new media--encompassing an array of online news sites, blogs and YouTube videos--to get updates on the country's biggest anti-government street protest in a decade. This move parallels recent events in Pakistan, where students turned to the Internet to bypass media blackout and galvanize the community during the Nov. 7 protest rally against President Pervez Musharraf.
In Malaysia, local online news site Malaysiakini, reported a massive spike in page views over the weekend, so much so that it had to put up a stripped-down version of its front page to ease network congestion.
Malaysiakini's editor-in-chief Steven Gan, told ZDNet Asia the Web site registered about 1 million unique visitors on Saturday, a 10-fold increase over average daily numbers. Gan said rally video clips streamed on the site were viewed by over 50,000 visitors over the past few days.
To further ease network bottlenecks due to the heavy demand, he added that Malaysiakini uploaded on Saturday its Bersih rally videos on YouTube, which is better able to provide much greater bandwidth capacity.
Gan's news site was not the only one to do so. A search on YouTube yielded at least 100 Bersih rally-related video clips, with the most popular registering 120,000 views to date.
Uploaded soon after the rally was staged, the clips ranged from videos filmed with the protestors' camera-enabled mobile phones, to news broadcasts run by CNN and Arabic news and satellite TV channel, Al Jazeera.
An array of blogs also gave extensive coverage, complete with on-the-scene citizen journalist reports, analyses, photographs, and links to rally video clips.
Popular local blogger Jeff Ooi recorded a five-fold increase in page views on his site Screenshots , last weekend.
In a phone interview with ZDNet Asia, Ooi said: "Screenshots recorded a spike of 24,600 page views and 21,000 unique visitors on Saturday alone. This is unprecedented for weekend traffic, which usually hovers around 5,000 page views a day."
Even theCICAK (which means "lizard" in Malay), an online socio-political youth magazine run mainly by Malaysian students from foreign and local universities, seemed to have covered the rally more comprehensively than the local mainstream media. Founded in 2005, theCICAK hopes to develop a generation of "thinking" Malaysian youth, states its Web site.
Plugging the independent hole
Ooi noted that alternative media platforms are filling the void of independent news coverage created by the abdication of local mainstream media in the country.
The Malaysian government, he said, was "caught with its pants down" in its attempt to impose a media blackout when activists and the opposition party were able to divert their campaign to the Internet, satellite TV channels, blogs, YouTube, and cell phones and text messages.
Local media reports quoted police as saying only 4,000 people turned up for the rally, while international wire services and Malaysia's local alternative media estimated between 30,000 and 50,000 people participated in the march. Thousands more were reportedly locked out of Kuala Lumpur, due to massive traffic jams as police set up roadblocks on the main arteries leading into the capital.
A senior editor of a local daily newspaper, who spoke to ZDNet Asia on the condition of anonymity, confirmed a media blackout was imposed and that the Malaysian government had instructed the local media to downplay coverage of the rally.
Activists also alleged that government operatives or its supporters conducted a campaign to sabotage the Bersih rally. Several pro-Bersih Web sites and blogs were hacked, while the SMS (short messaging system) tool of a key opposition party was commandeered to send out messages claiming the Nov. 10 rally was postponed.
The Bersih secretariat confirmed its Web site was hacked twice last week in the run-up to the rally. "On both occasions, the hacker inserted messages saying Saturday's rally had been postponed," said secretariat member Liew Chin Tong, in a phone interview.
He revealed the coalition has "learnt its lesson" and since moved its site to a more secured server. Liew also noted that the use of various technologies such as the Internet and YouTube, helped alleviate the impact of the local media blackout.
The opposition Peoples' Justice Party (PKR) claimed its SMS news system was hacked in the run-up to the rally. PKR information chief Tian Chua said in his blog that "someone infiltrated our [SMS news] system" and sent out a text message, purportedly from the king himself, saying the rally was canceled.
According to Malaysiakini's Gan, the government is uneasy about its inability to control the new media. He noted that ministers were unable to come to terms with the regular use of technology by opposition parties, activists, bloggers, NGOs (non-government organizations) and other groups.
"[The Malaysian government is] not able to deal with it. Technology is not going away, [society] is getting more open," he added.
Gan conceded, however, that the Internet is unlikely to have a major impact on the outcome of the upcoming general election. "But, the Internet and technology will play an increasingly important role in bringing about true democracy in Malaysia... In about 10 years' time, the full impact may be felt," he said.
Lee Min Keong is a freelance IT writer based in Malaysia.
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