Recently Google launched a new service called Hot Trends, which finds the fastest rising trends instead of the most popular topics on the net. There is a clear distinction between popular trends and popular topics because expert says, popular topics still centers around sex, sex, and more sex. In its bid to accurately spot popular trends instead of popular ‘topics’, Hot Trend has to screen inappropriate language and pornography by implementing advanced searching filter. As you might guess, the top trends are none other than celebrity, fashion, and entertainment – sexual stimulus of the modern society. Don’t be fooled into thinking that it will be a whole different story if the search scope is limited only to popular topics and trends among the Malaysian net user.

The News Straits Times reported on May 23 2007 about a Malaysian version of an online ‘gateway’ to sex services which gives a complete guide to prostitution in the country. They even visited to a health spa recommended by the site, and indeed everything is real. This abominable business is not something participated only by a selective niche, as the forum is partaked by 10 000 members – a staggering number. We are talking about online gateway to prostitution here, not online pornography, which you can only imagine what the statistics will be. You know, everything is just a click away…

If you can recall, one of the bill of guarantees under the Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC) project stated that the government will not implement internet censorship and the government has been true to its words thus far. The bill maybe the seventh heaven for the bloggers, but we all know what is the most popular thing on the net – definitely not reading political blogs people! I am pretty sure that the local authorities are aware about ‘what’s hot’ too, as TM Bhd. had launched the “Press Alt+F4 to Pornography” campaign long time ago – you can see those advertisements at the pillars of tolls at public highways. Doesn’t it remind you of the “Tak Nak” campaign? Everybody knows that this kind of effort – alone – is a real joke in curbing the human’s most overwhelming instinct.

The only question left is: Are we serious about combating pornography? Per haps our society has fallen to the state of moral bankruptcy, while hiding under the mask of freedom – just like the west. Well, we are definitely inching closer and closer to there. I myself am shocked by the total lack of apprehension in the report about the ‘gateway’ to sex made by NST – we are talking about prostitution here and it all seems fine and mundane. After all, free condoms will be given in the public soon, right? Oh, it’s about saving life from AIDS – big deal.

The bottom line is: No censorship people, we have to respect freedom. Well, you can’t politicize sex, can you? But we can definitely make money out of almost everything. We have perfected the art of making money out of sex: showgirls at motorshows, models wearing skimpy outfits for advertisments, sexual acts in almost every movie, miss universe, you just name it. So, what holds back the government and TM bhd. from implementing sexual content filter for the net? What harm will it bring? Human rights? I can imagine gruntled customers complaining, ” I paid for the broadband service to download XXX movies and now you are going to block it?” Oh yeah, the streamyx ADSL broadband service customers have grown two fold and three fold in these past two quarters.

Maybe some people will argue that if you implement sexual content filter then there will be a big confusion as to what is permissible and what is not? We may also encounter big problems with ‘innocent’ sites being blocked just because they have some nudity advertisements on their sites. One may also argue that you cannot block You Tube and p2p sharing programs too, just because they have some - or a lot of - pornographic contents. I would suggest blocking known URLs that are dedicated specifically for pornography and prostitution, so there won’t be any self made-up confusion about this issue. For example, the sites found by NST on online prostitution at Malaysia should be blocked! For what reason it should not be blocked? promoting prostitution in the country?

I agree that the form of censorship that I suggest here would not be able to completely prevent our youth from accessing to online pornography - there is no way to block everyhting in this cyber world. May I ask you: Why did the government raise the price of tobacco product in the country by 100% last time around? Will it completely solve smoking problem amoung our youth? Of course no, but nobody suggested that raising the price of tobacco by 100% is a joke in curbing smoking, except for the smokers themselves who are not pleased with it. So blocking dedicated pornographic and prostitution related URLs cannot completely prevent our youth from accessing to online sexual explicit content, but it will definately be a step forward - I know pornagraphy addicts won’t agree with me here.

As for human rights, let’s get real. Most western countries block tobacco product advertisement and there isn’t such a big fuss about it. Everybody agrees that smoking is bad for health, so a consencus was easily achieved. So are we too morally bankrupt to agree that pornography is bad for our youth? Don’t tell me that blocking pornography will prevent certain rights of certain people and our government will suddenly turn into an authoritarian ruler just by doing so. Well, at Canada they show hardcore pornography on the television from 10 p.m. to 12 p.m. every day - that is what I have been told by my friends. And at the US, they just legalized marijuana through democracy. Anyone here thinking about following them?

My worry is that this topic has not been given enough highlight that it deserves. Know that watching pornography among our youth has reached to an epidemic level. We are in a dire need of some drastic counter measurements before it gets out of hand. We are on rail towards moral bankruptcy, but nobody seems to notice about this silent killer called pornography. Our Imams, Ustaz, and Ustazah give a lot of ceramah and khutbah on drug abuse, the prohibition of alchohol in Islam, even smoking, and zina, but la takrobu zina a.k.a. pornography is usually spared for only a minute of talk. To me, the true scale of this haram conduct being indulge by our muslim youth is largely unknown by most ‘important authorities’. Nowadays, talking about morality in our society just smacks of being narrow-minded or extreme religious zeal. It is wrong to take drugs; it is wrong to road bully; it is fine to tengok benda lucah. We should be serious about banning our youth’s fast food towards moral bankruptcy a.k.a. pornography.

p/s: You may notice a rather lack of Islamic arguments in my points for backing up censorship. I talk a lot about morality rather than pornography being just haram - no more questions should be raised about combating it - in most of my points. The reason being I have in mind about sending this article to some other ‘places’ where I feel I should argue in a more general way if it is to be accepted. I also find that religion is fast becoming something strange in our country - especially among the people at the ‘top’. I thought I just came back to an Islamic country after spending some time at Canada, but let’s say I was a bit let down or even pretty worried. An interesting report to read on human rights at Malaysia.