eLawyer - EXABYTES PENANG BLOGGERS & LAW FORUM 2009

Recently, newly appointed Minister of Information, Communication and Culture Datuk Seri Dr Rais Yatim urged bloggers to act and write responsibly. He said bloggers who twist the truth shall be held accountable.

In the light of such developments, bloggers need to have more awareness of legal rights and responsibilities including laws governing bloggersphere, especially, the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission Act 1998 (MCMC Act) and the relevant rules and guidelines of MCMC, laws relating to copyrights issues and defamation laws.

Recently, e-lawyer successfully organised the eLawyer Blogging & Law Conference in March 2009 at University of Malaya, KL. Subsequently, they received much feedback from Penang bloggers requesting them to organise the similar event in Penang.

With the assistance and sponsorship of Exa Bytes Network Sdn Bhd (”Exabytes”), the largest web hosting company in Malaysia, the eLawyer - Exabytes Penang Bloggers & Law Forum 2009 in will be held at USM, Penang on 27 June 2009.

The details of the conference are as follows:

Forum Name: eLawyer - Exabytes Penang Bloggers & Law Forum 2009
Date: 27 June 2009
Time: 9.00am – 12.30pm
Fees: F.O.C.
Venue: Dewan Kuliah G31, Pusat Pengajian Sains Komputer, Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM), Penang Campus (Landmark Masjid USM).
Language: English
Organiser: www.eLawyer.com.my

This event is exclusively sponsored by www.exabytes.com.my - the No.1 web hosting company in Malaysia

Topic 1: Bloggers & Copyrights Laws

Speaker: Mr. Foong Cheng Leong (Cheng Leong)
Brief profile: Cheng Leong is a practising lawyer in KL. He specialises in intellectual property laws practice. He is an active blogger and owner of www.xes.cx. Cheng Leong started blogging since 2001. He speaks frequently on intellectual property and internet laws.

Topic 2: Bloggers & Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission Act 1998 (MCMC Act) and rules and guidelines of MCMC

Speaker: Mr.Shamsul Jafni Shafie (Sam)
Brief profile: Sam is the former director of Security, Trust and Governance Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission. He was also the Work Area 5 Leader on “International Cooperation” to draft the Global Cybersecurity Agenda for the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) - http://www.itu.int.

Topic 3: Bloggers & Defamation Law

Speaker: Mr. Stephen Tan Ban Cheng (Stephen)
Brief profile: Stephen is a journalist-turned-lawyer. Currently, he is a practising lawyer in Penang. Stephen was a senior journalist in the famous local newspaper including New Strait Times and the Star for more than 20 years.

Moderator: Mr. Khairul Anuar bin Shaharudin (Kruel)

Brief profile: Kruel is the cybername for Khairul, who is a practising lawyer in KL and an avid bloggers. Kruel participated in numerous bloggers events and his blog Legal Cat-asthrophereceived well comments from the bloggersphere in Malaysia.

Registration: The admission to this Forum is FREE. However, due to limited seats, please R.S.V.P by sending your details (Name, Tel, Email, Occupation and Company/School) to:

forum@elawyer.com.my before 24 June 2009 or call 03-2782 5399 for more information.

Please try to be there, especially bloggers from Penang and the northern region.


Please click on the image to enlarge.

CHINA BLOCKS TWITTER, WORDPRESS, YOUTUBE, HOTMAIL etc.

One of my favorite sites, MASHABLE-The Social Media Guide, announced that of today, the Chinese authorities have blocked internet access to Twitter, Flickr (Flickr reviews), Bing, Live.com, Hotmail.com and several other sites. Wordpress (WordPress reviews), YouTube (YouTube reviews), Blogger (blogger reviews) are also blocked.

According to early reports on Twitter (Twitter reviews) and on blogs it seems that the Chinese authorities want to quiet down the entire major social networking and social media part of the web ahead of the 20th anniversary of Tiananmen massacre on June 4th.

For advice and more information in this article written by Stan Schroeder, please CLICK HERE.

Can you imagine they also blocked RSS feeds too? Please read this fantastic article by Jacqui Cheng on how China's great firewall has turned its attention on RSS feeds.

Extracted from that article:

"As many readers who follow the antics of the Chinese government know, when it comes to enforcing the "Great Firewall of China," consistency isn't exactly its strong point. While certain phrases, concepts, and entire web sites are regularly blocked from reaching the eyeballs of many Chinese Internet surfers, things like high traffic are enough to let a number of forbidden concepts slip through. And then there's the indecision of China's Public Security Bureau (PSB), which has blocked certain sites (such as Blogspot and Wordpress blogs) on and off for some time now, and enforces the blocks inconsistently between provinces. For a One True China, there are certainly many interpretations of what is and isn't allowed through the country's cyber connection.

Savvy Internet fans in the people's republic have known for a long time, however, that there have been simple ways to get forbidden information. One of those ways was the magical gift of Real Simple Syndication, or RSS. The Great Firewall can block specific web sites all it wants, but as long as there's an RSS feed, many Chinese surfers can use feeds to access otherwise forbidden information.

Unfortunately, China appears to have finally gotten wise to RSS as of late—reports have been popping up from our readers and around the web of not being able to access FeedBurner RSS feeds as early as August of this year. More recent reports tell us that the PSB appears to have extended this block to all incoming URLs that begin with "feeds," "rss," and "blog," thus rendering the RSS feeds from many sites—including ones that aren't blocked in China, such as Ars Technica—useless.

So what is a feed-deprived Internet user in China to do? Well, there are a few workarounds, some of which may be simpler than others. Some of our readers in China tell us that web-based feed aggregators, such as NewsGator Online, (sort of) help provide access to RSS feeds."

For more, please CLICK HERE to read the rest of the article.

In another article written by Mark Hopkins at THIS LINK, China has also blocked CNN News too!! For more on that news, please CLICK HERE.

I am putting up this post because of the advice given and we better KIV these pointers just in case......if you can get my drift....

MANSOR WINS SO WHAT IS THE WRITING ON THE WALL?

As expected by many, unofficial results coming from Penanti seem to show that PKR's Mansor Othman is heading for a whopping victory in the by-election.

Well, this by-election has certainly made headlines in a different way.

Firstly, it is historically the only election with such a low turnout of only 46.15%. Statistically, out of a total of 15,384 registered voters in the constituency, a total of 7,100 people had cast their votes.

At the point of typing this post, counting is taking place in ten polling districts - Guar Perahu, Kuala Mengkuang, Telok Wang, Mengkuang, Sungai Lembu, Penanti, Kubang Ulu, Sungai Semambu, Tanah Liat and Berapit Road.

According to unoffical statistics compiled by Penang PKR, with about 40 percent of votes counted so far - PKR's Mansor Othman had 6,052 votes while Nai Khan Ari won 494 votes while our infamous Madam-Record-Every-Conversation-Aminah Abdullah miraculously managed to secure 392 ( I expected a double digit figure!!!) while Kamarul Ramizu Idris secured 56 votes.

In the 2008 elections, the Election Commission announced a 82.13% voter turnout.

Secondly, it is the only election with tight security and deployed Light Strike Force units armed with batons and shields outside the polling centres where most voters trickled in.

Any ordinary citizen would probably opine that such heavy police presence is quite ridiculous, incurring unnecessary expenses and can be perceived as scaring would-be voters from coming out to vote and also defying international norms.

Thirdly, the Aminah CD distribution of allegations of recorded conversations obviously did not convince voters to vote for her and instead, transformed her into a comedy act.

Fourthly, campaigners may have to be watchful about what they say during ceramahs if we take into consideration what has happened to MP Lim Kit Siang and MP Gobalakirshnan who are being investigated by the cops regarding what they said during their speeches.

PKR may have won this battle but the sad news is, there is a bigger battle to be fought and the outlook seems to be quite dismal. It is now up to the rakyat and the parliamentarians and elected assemblymen to rise to the occasion. A new strategy, a new approach and more caution and wisdom are definitely needed. What say you?