KUALA LUMPUR: Actress Nur Fathia Latiff who has been criticised by Netizens for her recent comment about Malaysia becoming a ‘cashless society’ in future, has come out to defend herself, stating that she understood the meaning of the word.
“I am not stupid. I know what the news report was all about, and I just made a sarcastic tweet after receiving a screenshot of it from an acquaintance. And since many of us feel that the economy isn't doing well, I was prompted to make that tweet," she told Harian Metro yesterday.
She insisted that she understood the recent news article about Youth and Sports Minister Khairy Jamaluddin saying that the country would become a cashless society by 2050.
Fathia added that she had a right to speak like every other Malaysian, and thus made the tweet without realising it would go viral. "I wasn't into research, I was just making a light-hearted statement, but too bad some took it seriously," she said, adding that it was to make Malaysians see things in a more positive light.
Fathia had earlier tweeted: "Are we going back to stone age and doing barter trade? You give me a television and I give you a bicycle?"
This resulted in several netizens slamming her, and some remarked whether it was her way "to gain cheap publicity".