Obscene and Offensive Content

Section 211 of the Communication and Multimedia Act prohibits content that is indecent, obscene, false, menacing or offensive in character with intent to annoy, abuse, threaten or harass any person.

The contents of some of the websites and other electronic communications over the net can be really distasteful, obscene or offensive for a variety of reasons. In many countries such communications are considered illegal. It can be very troubling if your children are exposed to adult content. Offensive content, or more realistically, potentially offensive content, is content in Freebase which may offend some visitors. For example include porn, hate speech, etc.

Obscene Content gives rise to a feeling of disgust by reason of its lewd portrayal and is essentially offensive to one’s prevailing notion of decency and modesty. There is every possibility of such content having a negative influence and corrupting the mind of those easily influenced. The test of obscenity is whether the Content has the tendency to deprave and corrupt those whose minds are open to such communication.

Many jurisdictions place limits on certain speech and ban racist, blasphemous, politically subversive, libelous or slanderous, seditious, or inflammatory material that tends to incite hate crimes. The extent to which these communications are unlawful varies greatly between countries, and even within nations. It is a sensitive area in which the courts can become involved in arbitrating between groups with entrenched beliefs. One area of Internet pornography that has been the target of the strongest efforts at curtailment is child pornography. Content is found to be obscene if it features activities that go against the prevailing values of a community. For example, if you're a blogger or blog publisher working with edgy material, you may post obscene content. Without losing money or public standing, you may want to know how you can legally post.
These negative contents which are obscene and offensive can easily influence people, especially those of the younger generation. It is unethical to publish obscene and offensive content such as pornography, child pornography, online sexual grooming, etc. Pornography tends to deprave and corrupt those viewing it. It is the activities being depicted which are the roots of the obscenity. Highly sensitive issues relating to online pornography tend to involve the viewing, possession, making and distribution of indecent images of children or serious stalking or harassment facilitated by communication technologies. Thus, the discovery of obscene materials is likely to be a serous criminal offence. On the other hand, storage and transmission of material which is considered obscene is a criminal offence. Child pornography is pornography which features the sexual abuse of children. Child pornography, including the depiction of any part of the body of a minor in what might be reasonably considered a sexual context and any written material or visual and audio, whether explicit or not, with a minor is strictly prohibited. The law’s approach to child pornography is that it is so offensive that possession as well as circulation of offending images is criminalized. It is an offence to possess indecent images involving children. Another term which is sexual degradation which it portrayal of women, men or children as mere sexual object s or to demean them in such manner is prohibited. Other than that, online sexual grooming it is now a crime to befriend a child on the internet or by other means and to meet or intend to meet the child with the intention of abusing them. A new preventative order, may be imposed which will prohibit adults from engaging in inappropriate behavior such as sexual conversations with children online.

Obscene and offensive content is a universal problem that can aversely affect the criminal, information security, economic and cultural aspects of society. This may increase in the criminal cases, youngster and adults who are easily influenced. Negative content will lead to loss of emotional control and inducement to commit crimes such as murder, rape, etc. Other than that, threats such as viruses, worms, Trojans and spyware will increase. Economic is another that affected which commercial trade of obscene material on the internet is seen as profitable and can contribute to revenue a big amount of money. However, this kind of trade profits foreign countries because of the outflow of our currency to their countries on purchasing these obscene materials. This aspect has also goes against the grain of our cultural values. It brings negative and unethical to our culture, values and morals, especially to the younger generation.



Reference:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_crime#Obscene_or_offensive_content

http://www.jisclegal.ac.uk/Portals/12/Documents/PDFs/crimeOverview.pdf

http://www.cybersecurity.my/data/content_files/13/80.pdf?.diff=1176417783

http://www.skmm.gov.my/facts_figures/codes_gl/guidelines/pdf/ContentCode.pdf

Cyber Crime

Base on some research...

Now, through a personal home desktop and internet connection, one can access vast galleries of information in the form of digital multimedia. Apart from all the fun you can have, the World Wide Web has also created a new environment of doing businesses, many corporations have adopted the World Wide Web to carry out its business services such as for banks with online services or even selling products such as Dell computers selling products online. The Internet and the World Wide Web has grown into a complex environment throughout the world and in Malaysia almost 62.6% of the population is connected to the internet on regular basis. In Malaysia, there have been 4,000 reported complaints by the citizens of Malaysia to CyberSecurity Malaysia.

Cyber crimes is a form of crime conducted over the internet using computer technology and involving in activities such as hacking, fraud and identity theft, copyright infringements, privacy and confidential data violations, obscene and offensive content, cyber stalking, information warfare, cyber terrorism and many more.

As mentioned above, Cybercrimes come in many forms and conducted through various techniques, the art of hacking, where one tries to access computer systems illegally through various methods such as sending a virus to a system and gaining access to import data resources which could lead to identity theft and theft of personal data such as bank account details. Some people fall into this trap and end up filling their online form and submit the form. On the other hand, CTOS actions caused many civilians of Malaysia to be black marked, if one had a bad history.

Legal frameworks known as Computer Crimes Act (CCA) 1997, is a legal framework for offenses relating to misuse of computers. Within the first category, the CCA criminalizes the acts of unauthorized access (section 3), unauthorized modification (section 5) and wrongful communications of access code or passwords (section 6).

Meanwhile, for the second category that involves other substantially criminal offences, the CCA penalizes the act of unauthorized access that purports to facilitate further offences (section 4).

News from The Star

Take sexual harassment reports seriously, Shahrizat tells employers

KUALA LUMPUR: Employers must take sexual harassment reports seriously because it is an act that cannot be tolerated, said Women, Family and Community Development Minister Datuk Seri Shahrizat Abdul Jalil.

She said employees should be informed of their rights to prevent sexual harassment in the workplace.

Firstly, many victims view sexual harassment as something that is too personal.

Secondly, secual harassment is not easily proven.

Thirdly, it has become a norm that a majority of victims of sexual harassment seem to think that they are being punished and judged.

"They suffer in silence," she told reporters.......


For more info: http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?sec=nation&file=/2009/11/2/nation/5024753

In my view...
Everyone should take this seriously... dun think that sexual haraassment is too personal o too private because if u think so u may just suffer it by urself... nobody can helps u... U have the rights to voice out to prevent sexual harassment anywhere... althought it is not easily be proven but i think that if we voice out at least we can get attention from other ppl from help o get away from it...

Computer Crime issues have become high- profile, particularly those surrounding hacking, copyright infringement through warez, child pornography, and child grooming. There are also problems of privacy when confidential information is lost or intercepted, lawfully or otherwise.

From Wikipedia.


Cybercrime on the Rise

The threat of cybercrime is rising sharply, experts warn at the World Economic Forum in Davos. Some Quotes from the BBC story about the forum:

“Online theft costs $1 trillion a year, the number of attacks is rising sharply and too many people do not know how to protect themselves…”

“‘This is not vandalism anymore, but organised criminality,’ a panellist said, while another added that ‘this is it is not about technology, but our economy.’”

“In the United States, a ‘virtual’ group had managed to hijack and redirect the details of 25 million credit card transactions to Ukraine. The group used the data to buy a large number of goods, which were then sold on eBay.”

‘But several panellists worried about the heavy hand of government. The internet’s strength was its open nature. Centralising it would be a huge threat to innovation, evolution and growth of the web. ‘The amount of control required [to exclude all risk] is quite totalitarian,’ one of them warned.”

from: http://www.britannica.com/blogs/2009/02/cybercrime-on-the-rise/

In my opinion, the government is responsible and should have a long term plan to fight and control over the increasing threat of cybercrime.

I also agree with 1 of the responder comments...

" With any new technological progression, there are always individuals who will attempt to utilize it for the exploitation of others. This is a trend that unfortunately will never change. This is a difficult issue because we all want that sense of security and safety while online, yet we do not want our rights to privacy/freedom of speech/etc infringed upon.

I do believe that eventually we will be able to implement a system which maintains the safety of users without compromising their individual rights or personal freedom. But having said that, I also believe that the only way that such a system can be created is through an enormous amount of trial and error; which will most likely result in many unfortunate occurrences for internet users. It is only through failure that we as a society can progress. Have to break a few eggs to make an omelet I guess. "

What is Law??

Law is a system of rules, usually enforced through a set of institutions. It shapes politics, economics and society in numerous ways and serves as a primary social mediator of relations between people.
From Wikipedia.



why is it we need Law... ??

Its possible to describe law as body of official rules and regulations. Law is also used to govern a society and to control the behavior of the people, so law is a formal mechanism of social control.
In my opinion i think this is best to describe y do we need law.

Standardise bumi status

News from the star online

KUCHING: The definition of bumiputra status in Peninsular Malaysia, Sabah and Sarawak should be standardised, said Sarawak Teachers’ Union (STU) president William Ghani Bina.

He said under the Federal Constitution, a child born in the peninsula would be accorded the status as long as one of the parents was a bumiputra.

In Sabah, a child is considered a bumiputra if his or her father is one.

However, for Sarawak, the Federal Constitution states that for a child to be a bumiputra, both parents must be bumiputra.

“How can we have three different definition of bumiputra status if we want to promote the 1Malaysia concept?

“We want this to be rectified, and to get Sabah and Sarawak to follow the same definition as being used in the peninsula,” Ghani said yesterday.

Urging the Federal Government to standardise the definition, he said the basis should be race and not religion.

Ghani was asked to comment on the plight of several Sarawakian students who had been denied places in university matriculation programmes because they were of mixed parentage and, therefore, did not enjoy bumiputra status.

Ghani added that the STU had received similar complaints and that he also knew of students of mixed parentage who were granted bumiputra privileges and scholarships to do their tertiary studies.

Deputy Dewan Rakyat Speaker Datuk Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar said the Federal Constitution should be streamlined with the Sarawak Constitution, which considers a child a bumiputra if his or her father was one.

Wan Junaidi, whose wife is a Chinese, was concerned that if the matter was not rectified, his children, like many children of mixed parentage, would no longer enjoy bumiputra privileges.

State Land Development Minister Datuk James Masing said the Education Ministry’s criteria in enrolling students into public universities should be based on merits and not race.

Sarawak PKR chairman and senior lawyer Baru Bian said he was ready to assist one of the affected students, Marina Undau and her family seek legal redress against the Education Ministry’s decision in rejecting her application to enter a matriculation programme.

Deputy Chief Minister Tan Sri Alfred Jabu has also pledged to help Undau.

Url: http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?sec=nation&file=/2009/11/2/nation/5022547

On the 2nd week of the class... our group are discusing about this news "Standardise bumi status"