COM410 INTERNET PART 2

Summary

This lecture by Dr. Ireena Nasiha Ibnu explores the dual nature of the internet and social media in Malaysia, drawing on statistical data from 2018. It discusses the widespread use of various social media platforms and communication apps, highlighting both the benefits and risks associated with these technologies. Key issues such as online expression, misinformation, privacy, copyright, and the concept of virtual democracy are examined. The lecture also touches on the digital divide impacting internet use and its implications for democracy, urging awareness and responsible use among users.

Highlights

• In 2018, Malaysia had 24.6 million social networking users, with Facebook leading the charge 🎉.
• Social media fulfills our need to belong and for self-presentation, boosting self-esteem 📈.
• The openness of social media can lead to uncontrollable self-information and reputation issues 🌐.
• Emotional downsides of social media include 'Facebook Depression' and 'Facebook Envy' 🥴.
• Freedom of expression online is balanced by the need for content regulation and privacy protection 🔐.
• Virtual democracy is challenged by technology and information gaps, affecting fair participation 📶.
• Misinformation online has led to serious consequences, like panic during Covid-19 🤯.
• There are concerns about child protection from indecent content on the internet 🚸.

Key Takeaways

• Social media is a double-edged sword: it connects but also exposes users to risks 🤔.
• Facebook remains the top social platform in Malaysia as of 2018, with 97% users having accounts 🌐.
• Issues of privacy, misinformation, and copyright in internet usage are critical 📜.
• Virtual democracy and digital divide are modern challenges in today's internet landscape ⚖️.
• Parental control in internet usage is low, despite high awareness among Malaysian parents 📉.

Overview

Social media in Malaysia plays a vital role in connection and expression, yet it brings about significant challenges, especially concerning privacy and misinformation. The extensive use of platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp signifies the popularity of these networks, but also highlights the risks of excessive connectivity, such as Facebook Depression and Envy.

This session delves into the risks associated with freedom of expression across the internet, illustrating the balancing act between empowering individual voices and regulating content to prevent harm. Issues such as fake news, privacy violations, and child protection are critical, necessitating active measures like Malaysia's MCMC's initiatives to counter misinformation.

Moreover, with the rise of virtual democracy, the disparity in technology access—often referred to as the digital divide—poses a threat to equitable political participation. The session underscores the need for universal, affordable access to tackle this divide, encouraging informed usage that respects privacy rights and promotes responsible interaction online.

COM410 INTERNET PART 2 Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 in Malaysia a report by MC MC in 2018 stated that today social media has become an important tool for connecting people building communities voicing out one's opinion and business marketing and advertising the a survey conducted in 2018 estimated that in Malaysia there were about twenty four point six million social networking users in 2018 of those 97% on a Facebook account making it
• 00:30 - 01:00 remains the most preferred social networking platform in the country this is followed by Instagram Instagram account 57 percent and YouTube 48 percent Google+ 31 percent Twitter 23 percent and linked in 13.3% with regards to communication apps survey found that they were around twenty seven point
• 01:00 - 01:30 eight million users in 2018 once up was the most preferred communication apps with 98% of them own a whatsapp account and about half own Facebook Messenger account followed by WeChat and telegram even though the repose I said earlier is found encouraging in terms of his engagement users however numbers of
• 01:30 - 02:00 studies have found just as the benefits and risk or we called it the double age of the Internet as number of issues specific to social media and internet surrounding our usage patterns today Baron in 2015 stated that our engagement with social networking site is motivated by two basic social needs the first is the need to belong that is our natural
• 02:00 - 02:30 desire to associate with other people and gain the acceptance and the second motivation based on the need for self-presentation that is our ongoing effort to shape what others think of us in economy and hoffman in 2012 stated that these two factors that I mentioned earlier operate simultaneously because social media
• 02:30 - 03:00 activity not only tell us we belong that is where our friends are but it increases our sense of a certain and therefore our self esteem and Gonzalez and Hancock in 2011 added that the simple act of updating and reading our own profiles boosts our self-esteem however the openness of social media
• 03:00 - 03:30 makes it impossible for us to control information about ourself and our repetitions because others can post information about us and our friends constantly provide accountability and feedback on our profile and other material that we post online the second debate over social media social media values lead to Facebook depression and Facebook and V how is that so the
• 03:30 - 04:00 American Academy of Pediatrics recognized Facebook depression that develops when preteen and teens spend a great deal of time on social media sites such as Facebook Instagram Twitter and then they begin to exhibit classic symptom of depression these depressions are simply defined as acceptance by peers and contact with peers online in
• 04:00 - 04:30 two - 2015 from Holt's research or study has shown that Facebook uses after one week away from the site had higher level of life satisfaction they feel happier less sad and lonely and they were more satisfied with their social life they had less trouble concentrating and they were more likely to feel present in the moment there is also
• 04:30 - 05:00 evidence of another emotional downside to social networking that is Facebook and we study by Chris Nova in 2013 found that as many as one in three Facebook users says they are sometime resentful of the happiness others the happiness others show on social media and if you are the social use a social media user you know that these are the topics your
• 05:00 - 05:30 friends usually emphasizing the pause who one's friend who report where they didn't go or who they didn't spend time with and how unhappy they are so I suppose you guys can relate to these issues or situations that I explained earlier finally the debate over social medias value raises the question what is
• 05:30 - 06:00 a friend on social media are we connected online but disconnected in real life Barron 2015 said that only 19% say that generally speaking most people can be trusted as online friends and again is only 19% this can be supported by psychologist John Takeo Poe when he argued that the greater the proportion of his to face interactions the less
• 06:00 - 06:30 lonely you are the greater the population proper proportion of online interactions the launderer you are but recognizing social medias double each he concluded that social media are not at the root of social isolation they are merely tools good or bad depending on how they are used
• 06:30 - 07:00 we have now recognized social medias double each at personal or individual level now we will be discussing on the double edge of technology in biggest cope or contacts the mass media includes radio television magazine newspaper and the internet the Internet and social media is a number of important issues of freedom of expression internet challenge
• 07:00 - 07:30 the right to freedom of expression on the one hand internet empowers freedom of expression by providing individual with new means of expression however on the other hand the free flow of information has raised the call for content regulation not least to restrict - access to potentially harmful information the issue is in freedom of
• 07:30 - 08:00 expression based on internet context that we are going to learn is based on freedom of the press controlling Internet expression pornography on the Internet copyright and privacy issues freedom of the press the internet has become a popular place for exercising
• 08:00 - 08:30 the right to free speech and an essential vehicle for circulating news and information governments in every countries they try to control the mass media including Internet with various guideline and regulation of communication in Malaysia media freedom be online press or traditional media they are guided through a number of Acts among them are the Sedition Act the
• 08:30 - 09:00 printing presses and publications Act or PPP A+ several specific media acts such as the broadcasting act the communication and multimedia act the control of imported publication act the bernama act and the finest act the government uses this restrictive laws to monitor the function the role and activities of media industries in
• 09:00 - 09:30 Malaysia the internet and social media do not distinguish between true and false bias an objective tribal and important once Miss information has been loose online it is almost impossible to catch and correctly false and fake information created and shed of Internet and social media have affected countless people and organization for example
• 09:30 - 10:00 Procter & Gamble was victimized by stories that its cleanest kill pads Starbucks was falsely accused of refusing to provide coffee to Marines serving in Iraq in Malaysia during discovered 19 pandemic we encountered numbers of fix or false information over the Internet which create panic and anxious among
• 10:00 - 10:30 nation example in this fly in this light the fake news of coronavirus in malaysia listed by the Ministry of Health recently in Malaysia the Malaysian communication and multimedia Commission's or MCMC set up a website sebenarnya dot mine in March 2017 to counterfeit news and dr. Amy Rudin the
• 10:30 - 11:00 CEO of cyber security Malaysia in 2019 stated that to make it worse six percent of Malaysian could not distinguish between rumors and good journalism the Internet and freedom of expression based on pornography most efforts at controlling the Internet are aim at
• 11:00 - 11:30 indecent or pornography web content the particular concern with the Internet therefore is about protecting the children in us the child pornography Prevention Act of 1996 forbade online transmission of any image that appears to be of a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct the US government had passed the children's Internet Protection Act in year 2000 requiring
• 11:30 - 12:00 school and libraries to install filtering software in Malaysia are ESPYs are instructed to block thousands of website by communication and multimedia Commission MCMC under communication and multimedia xcm a and almost all of these websites are related to offensive and indecent content such as spawn LGBT site sex and others in February 11 2000 19
• 12:00 - 12:30 the star released an article highlighting the issue of child pornography and Malaysian cyber law the article explains that child right activists are now pressing for Internet service providers or ISP Lygia to do more to prevent the circulation of child pornography the ISP roles and parental controls are the two possible solution to this issue now
• 12:30 - 13:00 let's try to understand more about these two role these two rules in the next slide in Malaysia ISPs and telecommunication company must comply with directive from the MCMC to restrict access to websites deem illegal internet content monitoring by a SPS and intermediaries however is not the only possible solution to this problem and has limited effectiveness
• 13:00 - 13:30 due to technical constrain according to MCMC 2016 parental control would enable parents to restrict or limit access to specific website works all images that deem inappropriate for the child based on the MCMC report on the slide in terms of awareness in 2018 MCMC reported that 60 2.4 percent of parents in Malaysia were aware of parental parental control
• 13:30 - 14:00 however the usage of parental control was still low with only 12 point two percent of them utilized this service the Internet and freedom of expression based on copyright or intellectual property ownership copyright protection is designed to ensure that those who create content are financially compensated for their work when the
• 14:00 - 14:30 content is tangible for example books movies magazines CDs authorship and use are relatively easy to identify but because material on the Internet is not tangible therefore it is easily freely and privately copied another confounding issue in copyright is that new and existing material is often combined with others as material to create even newer content
• 14:30 - 15:00 this makes it difficult to assign authorship therefore there must be protection for new technologies and innovators whose innovations are abused by other uses the Internet and freedom of expression based on privacy privacy is another issue of freedom of expression in Internet by saying this there must be privacy rights and the
• 15:00 - 15:30 ability for users to control how information about them is used digitally these privacy issues raised two concerns in internet contacts the first is protecting the privacy of communication we wish to keep private and the second is the use and misuse of private personal information willingly given online we are still discussing on
• 15:30 - 16:00 privacy issues and the diagram shows in this slide there are several example of Internet privacy that raise the issue of security email iCloud or computer storage online transaction for example from every credit card transaction beat online or at a stall and her about newspaper and magazine subscription and
• 16:00 - 16:30 cable TV subscribership is digitally recorded start and most likely so to others and how about when Facebook harvested personal data from about 50 million Facebook users for micro-targeting political campaigns and finally very cool yet risky and scary when uses can identify and be identified from nearby fast-food location through
• 16:30 - 17:00 location sharing or even we can identify people that we might know in the area these are some seek information or example that I can share for Internet privacy and of course they are lots more that one can think of so in Malaysia the Personal Data Protection Act or PDPA in 2010 came into force on 15 November 2013 to protect
• 17:00 - 17:30 information collected of an individual and the inappropriate use of personal data for commercial purposes virtual democracy democracy is defined as when citizens participate actively in important political decision-making processes and have equal rights to participate democracy is also about
• 17:30 - 18:00 citizens who have the information and freedom of communication the need to govern themselves and virtual democracy studies indicated that people with greater knowledge will pursue better government in Malaysia the government had a complete monitoring on the distribution of information until the emergence of the internet virtual
• 18:00 - 18:30 democracy democracy is when citizens participate actively in important political decision-making processes and have equal rights to participate increasing attention is being paid to the political uses of the new communication technologies such as using social media in their political campaigns virtual democracy or digital democracy or some even referred as a
• 18:30 - 19:00 democracy there is stands for electronic democracy these are the impact of emergence and development of digitization communication system for political purposes the internet emerges also create a communication medium for public debate that are spontaneous with I'm feedbacks flexible and above all self-govern but if democracy is
• 19:00 - 19:30 increasingly practice online those lacking the necessary technology and information will be denied the void that brings us to understand more how technology and information gap affects virtual democracy today virtual democracy the technology gap case of Malaysia in 2018
• 19:30 - 20:00 even with its rapid diffusion in Malaysia a survey by MCMC in 2018 indicated that almost 13% of people in Malaysia do not use the Internet the democratization of the Internet still favors those who have money to buy the equipment needed to access the Internet as well as to pay for the internet connection beside literacy or skill and
• 20:00 - 20:30 knowledge issues this leaves out many Malaysian citizen those on the wrong side of the digital divide the lack of technological access especially from the age group of 40s to 60s virtual democracy the information gap another important principle of democracy is the full access to information those without
• 20:30 - 21:00 the essential technology resources will have limited access to the information reason the main reason is media failures to deliver important information to all citizens for example cable TV subscribership such as Astro in Malaysia is lowest among urban working class and poor people some newspaper and magazines are not interested in some readers or consumers
• 21:00 - 21:30 because they do not possess the demographic profile wanted by advertisers such as well of people who possess low purchasing power to advertisers product and services so what is the effect or consequences now democracy will suffer from the information or knowledge gap the differences in knowledge civic activity and literacy between better inform and
• 21:30 - 22:00 less in formulation will increase that lead to less inform society or citizens so what is the solution according to Baron 2015 the best way to breach the technology information and knowledge gaps is to close the digital divide it is an effort that has taken up the interest of several private and public
• 22:00 - 22:30 entities just to ensure universal access to fast and affordable Network these students we have reached the last section in this chapter the five Internet freedom the Internet and social media especially with the power to reshape all the mass media raised multiple issues for media literate users hoping to effectively make their way in
• 22:30 - 23:00 an interconnected world guidance for which can be found in the Declaration of Internet freedom as you can see on the slide this declaration of Internet freedom is summarized as follows there must be no censorship of Internet they must be universal access to fast and affordable networks there must be
• 23:00 - 23:30 freedom to connect communicate create and innovate over the Internet there must also be protection for new technologies and innovators innovations are abused by other users there must also be privacy rights and the ability for users to control how information about them is being used
• 23:30 - 24:00 these five elements will explain and discuss in details earlier in this chapter I hope now each and every one of you understand how internet and world wide web shape and influence the users or consumers today before I end this session I would like to thanks everyone for listening and shall you have any
• 24:00 - 24:30 questions pertaining this topic or chapter please do not hesitate to engage with your respective lecturer until then please stay safe at home and see you next time