A Malaysian woman Catherine Chong Chin Chia who is known on Facebook at ‘Catt Ginger’, was arrested by the local police over claims she offended the King of Malaysia.
The offence is said to be a photo of the King with a pig nose wishing ‘Selamat Hari Raya’ in a post.
But a women’s group yesterday denied that one of its members, ‘Catt Ginger’, had insulted the King or the Yang di-Pertuan Agong Sultan Muhammad V on social media.
Women Development Organisation of Malaysia (WDO) president Dr Tan Yee Kew said Catt Ginger had also denied that she had anything to do with the posting on Facebook, adding that she had been framed.
Chong is currently being remanded for a day at the Dang Wangi police headquarters under the Communications and Multimedia Act.
Activists say the act itself was crafted in a way to intimidate people on social networks online, in an attempt to instigate fear in locals and curb their social media freedom particularly when it comes to their sentiments regarding the elite.
The women’s group said it received a complaint from Chong on July 1 that an unknown sender had sent a screenshot of a post with a photo of the Yang Di-Pertuan Agong defaced in an insulting manner.
The post was claimed to have been edited with Chong’s profile, which was said to make it look like she was the one who made the posting, and Chong immediately lodged a report to the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) on the same day and police report the day after.
“She started to receive abusive and threatening calls, text messages afterwards and was shocked to discover on July 3 that her real name, phone number and home address had also gone viral,” she said.
Tan also blamed an online writer known as ‘akarimomar’ and an online portal for their “unprofessional and irresponsible reporting” by spreading fake news.
What is Facebook doing about this?
Recently, Facebook announced policies to prevent adverts showing “misleading or illegal” content.
And Facebook staff are taking matters into their own hands — forming an unofficial task force to look into allegations that stories shared on the social media site helped warp the election.
But it is far from having the capacity to decide whether other’s can hijack your Facebook page and post vile pictures that can land you in trouble.
One thing that Chong should have done was to delete the post on her page.