Daniel Chandranayagam at Global Voices has published a report entitled “Malaysia: A Step Closer To Internet Censorship?”

“The Malaysian government is looking into the feasibility of installing an Internet filter to block “undesirable websites”, along the lines of the People’s Republic of China’s abandoned “Green Dam” software. The reason for this new move is so that racial harmony in multicultural Malaysia is maintained, according to news site Malaysiakini.” – Chandranayagam

In an update, Chandranayagam reported that “Information Communication and Culture Minister, Rais Yatim, just clarified that the Internet filter is meant to block pornography, and not a means to curtail freedom of expression. He denied that the proposal is to muzzle bloggers, who are subject to the usual laws of the land.”

This seems to contradict the previously reported reason by Malaysiakini. Either way, the move is troubling, and its difficult to not see a situation in which the technology will be misused.

“No matter how they want to word it, it is semantics, any move to tell us where we can go, what we can read is censorship no matter how they justify it,” Dhillon Andrew Kannabhiran, chief executive Hack in the Box, told The Malaysian Insider.