Influential news portal The Malaysian Insider has been blocked on TM Unifi and Celcom data networks, on the occasion of the site’s eighth anniversary.
Netizens hoping to catch up on independent news from the site were greeted by a notice from the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) stating that TMI had violated Malaysian law.
We checked to see if we could access the TMI site on other networks (we used a DiGi connection, as well as a VPN extension for Google Chrome), and the site loaded normally.
TM Unifi and Celcom are owned by government-linked companies (GLCs), over which Putrajaya holds significant sway.
According to TMI editor and CEO Jahabar Sadiq, no prior notice was given to the site by the MCMC before it was blocked.
After putting a request for clarification, Jahabar said that the MCMC had confirmed the site was under a Federal Government ban, the reason for which would be explained in a statement to be released by the commission at a later time.
Malaysian netizens are still coming to grips with this latest media blackout, but the lawyer Syahredzan Johan perhaps put it best in his frustrated tweet:
