Medium allegedly blocked in Malaysia

January 26, 2016 4:44 PM

On January 20th Medium received a takedown request from the Malaysian Government over a supposedly false report on the Malaysian Prime Minister and corruption by the Sarawak Report, a whistleblowing news organization whose main site was banned in Malaysia. When Medium Legal requested clarification, such as official court documents and proof of the report's falsehoods, instead of providing such documentation, Malaysia blocked Medium.
posted by divabat (22 comments total)

Update: a friend reports that what the Medium piece fails to acknowledge is that it was only down for a few hours but is back up now (which explains how I can still access it).
posted by divabat at 4:56 PM on January 26, 2016 [1 favorite]

Good old Malaysian censorship. Symptomatic of Malaysia's slide backwards. Quite a few of my family and friends are leaving or already have left the country.

I have a friend there who likes to send me pictures of his subscription to The Economist magazine. It often arrives in his mailbox a week late with large swathes of local news blacked out.
posted by dazed_one at 4:59 PM on January 26, 2016 [2 favorites]

It often arrives in his mailbox a week late with large swathes of local news blacked out.

What, by hand? How do they have the manpower for that?
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 5:35 PM on January 26, 2016

Isn't this something that can be easily resolved by a nice gift among friends? Perhaps a few free ads for 1Malaysia on Medium that can be later reversed minus a few spots into a personal account?
posted by the cydonian at 5:37 PM on January 26, 2016 [1 favorite]

It often arrives in his mailbox a week late with large swathes of local news blacked out.

I loathe censorship, but this is sort of understandable compared to having butts and cleavages blacked out in something as innocuous as Time magazine.
posted by peripathetic at 5:56 PM on January 26, 2016

That happens in Thailand as well (the blacking out).

I tested it out on my phone last night (Celcom), no go. Haven't gotten around to rooting it to get the DNS changed.
posted by cendawanita at 6:21 PM on January 26, 2016

I would not rank Medium as a bastion of free speech while they still dump Tor users into CloudFlare CAPTCHA hell.
posted by jeffburdges at 7:09 PM on January 26, 2016 [5 favorites]

My friends in Malaysia are saying they aren't having any problems accessing Medium.com, so the block can't have been permanent, or even for long. Then again, given how Malaysian politicians are looking to amend the laws this year to monitor and block websites and blogs that post defamatory information on the government it may only be a matter of time.
posted by DiesIrae at 7:26 PM on January 26, 2016

Current informal reports:

TMnet: Fine (inc Sarawak Report)
Digi: Fine (inc Sarawak Report)
UniFi: Mixed reviews (some fine some not fine)
Celcom: No go

Dieslrae: they've been wanting to make those laws for ages now, I think there's been variations already in the books. Usually they just haul up people for ISA/Sedition.
posted by divabat at 7:31 PM on January 26, 2016

Democracy falters in South-east Asia: The extraordinary decision to drop corruption investigations into Najib Razak, Malaysia’s prime minister, highlights growing concern about lack of democratic accountability in Malaysia and across south-east Asia as a whole.
posted by cendawanita at 9:14 PM on January 26, 2016

Maxis: app works fine, website times out on load
posted by divabat at 9:41 PM on January 26, 2016

The experience with Indian and Chinese censors has been that it's rarely a single, solid national firewall, so to speak, but that it's usually a fence with loads of holes in it. That is to say, ISP's usually tend to interpret the blockage directive in their own way. If the website times out on load, _usually_ it could mean they've mucked around with DNS settings; switching to Google's DNS, 8.8.8.8, may help.

In general, access via apps are the last to go; for instance, you'll definitely be able to hit Facebook or Instagram on your phone if you're on data-roaming in China. But if you switch to, say, the airport wifi, it's often a touch-and-go; sometimes the app would work, other times it wouldn't. But you'll definitely not be able to hit the website through a local wifi.
posted by the cydonian at 10:09 PM on January 26, 2016

No problems accessing from my location but then I've been on Google's DNS since the last big spate of bannings.
posted by BinGregory at 10:51 PM on January 26, 2016

It often arrives in his mailbox a week late with large swathes of local news blacked out.

What, by hand? How do they have the manpower for that?--His thoughts were red thoughts

Malaysia is the latest low-cost labor manufacturing country. First China, then Vietnam, now Malaysia (and Indonesia). Labor cost is almost nothing.
posted by eye of newt at 12:22 AM on January 27, 2016

I'm keeping a list of Malaysian ISP access statuses to Medium on Medium, PasteBin, and Tumblr. Ping me if you have information to share.
posted by divabat at 12:40 AM on January 27, 2016

Malaysia Closes Investigation Into Prime Minister Najib Razak’s Funds

Saudi gift to Malaysia PM Najib Razak 'for election campaign'

posted by divabat at 1:38 AM on January 27, 2016

eye of newt: While censorship manpower costs are certainly below what they would be in the west, your characterization of Malaysia as the "latest low-cost labor manufacturing country" is wrong. Malaysia is actually significantly more expensive than anywhere else in Southeast Asia (aside from Singapore) and also China.
posted by ropeladder at 1:40 AM on January 27, 2016

Whole seemingly innocuous swaths of the Guardian are blocked in Indonesia. Thailand chooses to block the Daily Fail.
posted by TWinbrook8 at 2:44 AM on January 27, 2016

Job creators.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 4:22 AM on January 27, 2016

APPARENTLY I WAS WRONG THE ENTIRE TIME and I've been on UniFi instead of TMnet, the ISP giving everyone problems. But TMnet owns UniFi so it should have been the same. BLARGH
posted by divabat at 6:18 AM on January 27, 2016

Seriously people are paid to black out text in magazines? I believe it but wow. There's always something new I learn about dictatorships that I realize I read about in 1984.

I kid you not; while I was living there, I knew someone who worked high up in the political section of a western nation's embassy. For some reason there was almost always a florist's delivery van parked across the street from their house.
posted by dazed_one at 8:32 AM on January 27, 2016

Four more local blog sites blocked. Apparently so is Asia Sentinel
posted by divabat at 8:35 AM on January 28, 2016