Rais Yatim

I had a lot of comments when I made the tweet about Rais Yatim while scrambling to catch the scores for the recent Thomas Cup semi-final encounter between Malaysia and China - the one when Lee Chong Wei was thought a lesson by the all-dancing, half-naked Lin Dan. I was actually in the car, being driven up to Kuala Kangsar. I tried listening on the radios for radio commentary on any of the RTM channels, or even some sort of update if possible. Alas … there was none!

And this was the semi-finals when Malaysia eventually lost, but the point was in this day and age, information is a commodity and access to them were taken for granted. Therefore I resorted to twitter and what I got was point-by-point update of the score in almost real time. Let me repeat it again - RTM radio = no commentary or result update - twitter = real-time feed complete with shouts and the occasional swearing. Big difference there, and certainly not acceptable for 2010. To make the matter worst, only in January 2010, Datuk Seri Utama Rais Yatim, our Information, Communications and Culture Minister proclaimed that twitter was a bad cultural influence. I do agree with that to a certain extend so I was not criticising him for making such statement. The problem is, he should have come up with a viable alternative, so that those with real hunger for information have a venue to subscribe to. This made the statement, which was possibly well-meaning appear prejudiced and lack of insight. Perhaps my thoughts can be succinctly expressed more eloquently by Niki Cheong in his blog entry here. Happy reading!

Oh Dear! I Have Been Warned!

KUALA LUMPUR: The Information, Communications, Culture and Arts Ministry will use a “diplomatic approach” in dealing with private media corporations and bloggers.

Minister Datuk Seri Dr Rais Yatim said the ministry preferred to take follow-up efforts than legal action against those who have violated the laws.

Dr Rais, who is the former foreign minister, said he would study the current circumstances and find ways to work closer with private media groups and bloggers.

This is a change from the quote "Blogger adalah Goblok" from you know who. Thanks God he got spanked in the last election!

Update on Thursday, April 16, 2009 at 10:16PM by Haris Abdul Rahman

KUALA LUMPUR: The government is not looking to find fault with bloggers and other internet users but would like them to follow the law to ensure they did not misuse it.

Minister of Information, Communication and Culture Datuk Seri Dr Rais Yatim said the ministry played an important role in establishing only the right kind of information reached the masses.

Now it makes sense! It is nothing to do with control.