Spammed by the Prime Minister!

ARCHIVES 2011

By admin-s On Feb 1, 2011

By Kee Thuan Chye

NO less than the Prime Minister has just spammed me! In an e-mail wishing me Happy Chinese New Year. I’m not pleased. In fact, when I got the e-mail, I freaked out. How did he get my address? I take strong umbrage against whoever gave it to him. It is an invasion of my privacy.

Najib Razak (or rather, his assistants) reportedly sent out that e-mail to 1.5 million people. The Star reported that many were happy to get it – in a report quoting only three people. And two of them had Muslim-sounding names! From the tweets I’ve seen, it seems many Muslims have been getting the e-mail too. Some tweeters considered the greeting “insincere”, some suggested reporting the matter to Cyber 999 and even the police.

Many questioned how Najib or his assistants got their e-mail addresses. There’s a theory going round that it came from the database of a media conglomerate. If this is true, the practice is, of course, not right. It contravenes the cyberworld law of data privacy. Whoever gave the data to him showed that they did not respect that privacy.

My wife got a CNY greeting from Najib too – via an SMS. Did her telco give her number to Najib and Co? Is that a proper thing to do? This episode shows that the personal details of Malaysians are not safe from prying and abuse. And that Big Brother is watching. That’s a scary prospect.

Najib’s greeting is yet another of the public relations campaigns he has been mounting for more than a year now. Those who are aware realize they are nothing more than efforts to win votes for the next general election, but there are plenty of others who are not so clued-in.

‘This Chinese New Year campaign seems to have had an effect, especially on fence-sitters. Some of them said they were touched. They seemed swayed into believing that the PM cared enough to send them the greeting. This is not surprising, because gullible Malaysians often fall for cheap tricks all too easily. The number who have fallen victim to Internet scams must be substantial. As a politician of long experience, Najib must surely know that.

More public relations at work can be seen in the awarding of datukships in conjunction with Federal Territory Day. The number of Indians being awarded this year is relatively high. Seen in relation to Barisan Nasional’s bid to sustain its regaining of the Indian vote, this is to be expected.