14 DAY TRIAL // Pornography is one of the most "flourishing" industries on the Internet and the number of sites posting this type of content is increasing with each passing year. However, there are some countries whose governments are limiting the access to such materials, due to their alleged bad influence on their citizen's moral values.
But certain states are taking these anti-porn measures too far. And this is the case of Malaysia, a country that has undertaken several important measures in this field, amongst which enforcing the use of filters in the case of Internet Caf?s or educational and government networks.
However, as reported by the country's Centre for Independent Journalism, this measure has a negative effect, also blocking the access to health sites. These sites offer very useful information related to AIDS and STDs prevention and are very important for the poorly informed Malaysian society.
For example, according to what Sonia Randhawa, the Centre's director, told AFP, it looks like up to 10% of the results obtained from searching the expression "safe sex" are blocked, and that by using the most nonrestrictive filters.
The Centre for Independent Journalism says that the anti-porn measures adopted by the Malaysian government represent the country's first formal attempt to impose a level of censorship over the Internet.
"The Internet is the only place in Malaysia where there are guarantees of freedom of expression... We're concerned that using the filter approach could easily be a temptation to filter out other sites as well," concluded Sonia Randhawa.