Taib, Sultan of Spin, goes to cyberwar
Hornbill Unleashed
At the risk of adding to the miniscule number of hits on www.sarawakreports.org, the copycat website run by Taib’s groupies, I recommend a short visit to the site. It will make you laugh, at a time when nasty, low-class scams like the blue films of an Anwar impersonator are in circulation.
Taib’s own low-class scam, ‘Sarawak Reports’, must be another of those ‘secret weapons’ that George Chan alluded to. It is a tawdry ‘ciplak’ or fake of the original whistleblower website Sarawak Report www.sarawakreport.org. Imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery, but there does not appear to be anything sincere about Taib’s cyberspin.
George Chan’s previous ‘secret weapon’, Najib forcing Taib to say he will step down, backfired badly and exploded in their faces. The secrecy surrounding George Chan’s weapon is so intense that even he himself does not seem aware what it is or how it works.
Taib refused to play along with Najib, and merely repeated his empty promises to groom a successor. I presume he has had many, many PBB pets to groom over three decades, but all of them must have fleas, or weak knees. It looks increasingly likely that Taib will only name his successor in his will (and the successor’s last name will probably be Taib).
Taib’s Clone Wars
The clone website is prettily designed. As Taib’s mansions can testify, low class and poor taste does not come cheap. Taib’s website must have cost the Sarawak taxpayers a hefty sum of money. The content, however, is the usual boring Borneo Post propaganda.
Sarawak Report, run by Clare Rewcastle Brown, is packed with facts and even a few jokes. Sarawak Reports, on the other hand, is simply one long running joke. They boast extra-large-font sensational headlines, such as “Sarawak CM on balancing economic growth with environmental sustainability” that can make you nod off before you finish reading it.
Taib has not dared to publish the number of hits on the site, whereas Sarawak Report enjoys more than 50,000 hits a day. Taib’s cybergoons have also failed to publish a single comment from the public. Even though 21 comments have been officially recorded on Taib’s interview, every single one of them appears to be “awaiting moderation”. One might surmise the online commentators are not particularly complimentary about Taib’s pointless interviews.
In a sad twist of fate, a Borneo Post copywriter seems to have lost his job when he printed the website of Sarawak Report by mistake, promoting the anti-Taib site inadvertently, instead of Taib’s clone site Sarawak Reports. Maintaining deceptions can be complicated.
