Social media platforms have empowered the world community with easy access to cyber communications, including in the field of electronic commerce.
A security analyst, however, said in 2015 that social media in Malaysia might be exploited by unscrupulous individuals to spread lies and slander, execute character assassination, instigate communal rift, initiate political chaos, or cause public disorder.
This analyst also predicted that some social media users might sooner or later create security issues, and the consequences could be dangerous to Malaysia as a multi-ethnic, multi-cultural, and multi-religious state.
The above was made after several social media users from unknown domains started posting contents on the Internet to ridicule Negaraku as Malaysia’s national anthem, making fun of the Yang di-Pertuan Agong through provocative caricature, and causing anger in Muslims through images of non-halal food purportedly meant for a Ramadan breaking-of-fast session.
This observation was validated when an international broadcasting organisation reported in March 2016 that social media could become a conduit for spreading “threats, intimidation messages and rumours” aimed at creating “discomfort and chaos in the society”.
It also could be used to “ruin someone’s reputation just by creating a false story and spreading it across the social media”. Hence, the emergence of social media’s evil impact is an expected phenomenon in the current digital world.
Malaysia, which has a huge number of Internet users, is not immune.
A local report on Sept 25, 2018, for example, stated that Facebook users in Malaysia totalled 16.8 million; YouTube, 16.6 million; Instagram,11.8 million; and Twitter, 7.2 million.
Another local report said in January: “Malaysia ranks top 5 globally in mobile social media penetration, highest in the region”; and that Internet penetration in the country “stood at 80 per cent with users spending a daily average of eight hours and five minutes online”.
These indicate that any hot stuff circulated through social media is bound to receive a large audience.
Consequently, this leads to the emergence of perceptions of uncontrollable implication.
We are now experiencing this phenomenon resulting from the dissemination of a video of an alleged high-profile gay sex, purportedly involving a federal minister.
It is now stirring up political debate and polemics; as well as causing a PH component party to suffer from an apparent internal crack.
Malaysian authorities, however, had already been tasked with examining the motives behind the release of this digital material.
Hence, it is unwise for anyone to be entrapped in a denial syndrome related to this controversy.
This is due to the fact that endless denials of this controversy are dangerous to some political individuals.
This is because their statements and reactions to this issue might open a Pandora’s box of some kind of power struggle involving multiple actors in high positions.
Unstopped denials on this issue might also lead to the unmasking of the true identity of certain master puppeteers whose unseen hands had been suspected of moving the cloak-and-dagger games which are detrimental to PH’s political security; as well as its institutional and financial reforms.
These mysterious political actors, therefore, must be forewarned that their puppet shows, which are unhealthy to national politics, must be stopped immediately.
Otherwise, they will destabilise PH politics, its regime security, and its aspiration to build a progressive Malaysia.
This is because politics is defined as “the shaping of human behaviour for the purpose of governing large groups of people”; political security “is about the organisational stability of social order(s)”; and regime security in developing a country, “which is part of the state’s administrative system, is an integral element in defining the state”.
In Malaysia, this means that a political endeavour must be solely geared to benefit our people, society, and country.
More specifically, a political act in our country must not be used for personal interest or individual gain which could tarnish the state’s dignity, sovereignty and national security.
We cannot run away from these prerequisites. This is because the political security of PH as Malaysia’s new ruling party is related to the country’s stability. It is also because PH’s ability to rule this country with honour and vigour is extremely important to all Malaysians.
The security of the Malaysian government, therefore, must not be undermined by any form of political absurdity, factional madness, false flag operations, or power struggle. Deterring these evils, including the evil of a filthy video, is critical to Malaysia because PH under the premiership of Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad is in the midst of a mission to rectify the country’s institutional decadence, and restore its financial credibility.
The writer is a student of strategic and security studies, as well as a member of parliament for Parit Sulong, Johor, between 1990 and 2003