Wikipedia founder says Malaysia should ditch censorship
By AFP in Free Malaysia Today
KUALA LUMPUR: A co-founder of online encyclopedia Wikipedia said on a visit to Malaysia today that the country should ditch censorship which is a damper on economic growth.
Jimmy Wales said censorship was counter-productive for Malaysia, which ranked 131 out of 175 nations on the 2009 Reporters Without Borders press freedom index because of its tight controls on print and broadcast media.
“This is a country that has a fairly mixed record… there is still some censorship in this country and I think we are beginning to see that it is no longer an effective strategy, certainly not an effective strategy when we think about economic growth,” he said.
“When you think about making sure that the people have the information they need, make good decisions in their lives, it’s absolutely important that we have a very open flow of information,” he told a financial conference.
“I want to write that information (on sites like user-generated Wikipedia) so that my fellow citizens have the knowledge they need so they can’t be oppressed.”
Lively forum
Prime Minister Najib Razak, who took office in the mainly Muslim country in April last year, promised to promote openness and transparency but has since faced accusations that his administration is trying to silence critics.
Yesterday, British tycoon Richard Branson told a different conference in Kuala Lumpur that the ongoing sodomy trial against opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim was discouraging investors from coming to Malaysia.
