Jenifer backs call to scrap AntiFake News Act

KOTA KINABALU: Assistant Education and Innovation Minister Jenifer Lasimbang has echoed DAP parliamentary leader Lim Kit Siang’s call to scrap the highly-controversial Anti-Fake News Act.

“We have various laws already in place to curb our freedom of expression. There are already laws in place to ensure peace and harmony is maintained in our country,” the Moyog assemblywoman told The Borneo Post.

On Wednesday, Kit Siang said the Act should be repealed as it was passed not to curb fake news but to ‘institutionalise and protect the 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) scandal’.

He was also quoted saying that the Act was used as a ‘repressive tool’ to prevent news related to the 1MDB scandal from being published.

“The problem that I see with anti-fake news law is that it empowers ‘an’ individual to determine what constitutes fake news or not and there is a strong possibility of abuse,” Jenifer opined.

She asserted that there was no need to create another Act to curb fake news as the scope of the existing acts was vast enough to restrict fake news.

Kit Siang on the other the hand supported the creation of an additional Act but was opposed to the one passed by the previous Barisan Nasional government.

“The public and media should exercise self-censorship. Anyway, the main point is one person to determine what is fake news is bad,” she added.

The infamous Act was approved by the previous government and passed in Parliament on April 2 despite strong objections from the opposition.