cyber-balkanisation

Internet become a part of our daily life. Cyber-balkanisation as a new age form of group through new media; Internet. Evolution of cyber-balkanisation is a form of more and more niche and focused groups of people through any kind of social networking platform on the Internet.

A citizen of journalism is a part of cyber-balkanisation. He acted as a journalist, posted article or updating status that can give harm towards the society and the government.

There are many cases related to cyber-balkanisation in Malaysia. The latest case was involved a Malaysian couple who upload a picture of Ramadan controversial greeting (bak kut teh) on Facebook page. Alvin Tan, 25 and Vivian Lee 24, pleaded not guilty to uploading and publishing a seditious publication. Both of them were charged under subsection 4 (1) (c) of the Sedition Act 1948 which punishable under subsection 4 (1) of the same act.

A couple who been charged by posting their controversial photo on Facebook

Other than that, cyber-balkanisation lead to increasing of social problem. The Internet gives information that what they want. Just key in a word then the information will pop-ups by million articles related to that word. Just say what kind of info that you want to read or see, you can get it in just one click. For instance, pornography or fire arm such as gun and bomb. all you can do is access through the Internet.

Try to imagine, majority of visitors are teenagers age 7 to 25 year old. They are the generation whom eager to know or search something new related to their interest in the website. Moreover, a website has a very own customization towards what they want according to their interest.

The government should more focus and alert to what is happening in cyber world. The government should react as same as countries such as Iran and China which blocked a website; Google to be access by their people. Even though it is not a good solution but at least they are trying and can minimize the problem from been too aggressive.

example of updating status on Facebook to create controversy

Politic in Malaysia also been runoff by cyber-balkanisation. It gives chaos to the country especially towards society. For example, the case of Adam Adli, a student who first start his seditious statement against the government. The action was he freely updated status after his friend been beaten by policemen during the assembly at Universiti Perguruan Sultan Idris (UPSI). Nevertheless, his friend was not really dying as what he stated on his Twitter’s account.

From the view, we can conclude that new media gives power to the users to attract visitors to believe and react. The Internet is not been used as what the users want. People should not simply believe on what been published in the Internet. Try to gain knowledge and added information by investigate and make some small research towards to the information.

Posted by siti noorafera at 11:35 PM