Forget the hype. The Internet alone cannot bring about democracy. Yes, the Internet can, and has, made a difference.
But in many countries, the penetration rate is still very low. Moreover, despite the promise of an unfettered cyberspace, governments can, and have, put the Internet on a rather short leash.
Take, for example, malaysiakini . The only advantage we have over the traditional media in Malaysia is that we need not apply for a publication licence.
We still have to operate under many other restrictive laws that keep the traditional media in check. Indeed, the number of laws which directly and indirectly impinge on press freedom in Malaysia is, no, not five or 10, but 35.
They include the Internal Security Act, the Official Secrets Act, laws against sedition, libel and defamation, and contempt of court - just to name a few.
Until all these restrictive laws are repealed, there can be no genuine press freedom.
Monopoly of truth
Malaysia is a democracy. We have freedom of speech, but no freedom after speech. There is freedom of movement, but no freedom of assembly. We have a plethora of publications about a dozen or so newspapers in four different languages but no free press.
Clearly, the government had a complete monopoly on information until the emergence of the Internet. But while we have finally managed to break the government's monopoly on truth, we are nowhere near breaking its monopoly on power.
Malaysiakini went live two years ago and even today we are still very much a cowboy outfit. Despite this, we have 100,000 visitors daily which puts us in the same league as major newspapers in the country.
Our success is due to three key reasons:
One, government policy in order to promote the Multimedia Super Corridor, Malaysia's own Silicon Valley, the government has pledged not to censor the Internet. To its credit, the government has kept very much to its promise.
Two, political conscientisation over the past few years, a growing number of Malaysians have developed a keen interest, among others, in democracy, human rights, good governance and independence of the judiciary.
And three, lost of credibility among traditional media due to press self-censorship, readers are increasingly driven to the Internet in search of alternative news sources.
There is a fourth reason that there are journalists who are willing to draw a line on the sand and tell the government: "This far, no further."
New generation
The profile of our readership is telling.
Visitors below 18 are almost negligible, 0.02%. Those in their teens are definitely not our market. Between 18-25, 8%. We are not reaching college students either. Between 26-40, 50%. The majority of our readers are working professionals.
But consider this. Above 40, we have 46%. These are readers who are already in top management posts, who feel that they are not getting what they want from the highly censored traditional media. Many go online specifically to visit malaysiakini . We are indeed introducing a new generation to the Internet.
We have our fair share of problems too. Our website is apparently a huge magnet for hackers. We have lost count on the number of times that malaysiakini has been hacked.
I'm not going to speculate where these attacks come from, but the government last year vowed to launch 'missiles' against errant websites. Suffice to say, protecting malaysiakini from hackers is a major preoccupation for our small technology team.
Malaysiakini journalists do not have official press tags, which are issued by the government to all working journalists.
Our application for these passes was rejected last year. Consequently, we are banned from government functions, and more recently, the Parliament. However, the ban is not strictly enforced and we will continue to challenge it.
And of course, we face attacks from the government. Issues were made regarding our sources of finance, pressures have been put on our advertising clients, and we were called 'traitors' by Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad.
But we expect worse to come. There have been discussion in government circles on amending the printing laws to require licencing for news websites such as malaysiakini .
No guarantee of success
The journey malaysiakini has embarked more than two years ago is both perilous and treacherous. There is no guarantee of success.
We face both government and financial pressures. Only time will tell whether we are going to eventually reach our destination. There is, however, no turning back. Giving up, too, is not an option.
Forest Gump said, "Life is like a box of chocolates" you never know what you're going to get. Likewise, press freedom is like toothpaste once it is out, it's difficult to put it back in.
Our job as journalists is to squeeze a blob of press freedom out from the tube. Your job is to give us a hand.
Only then will the Internet live up to the hype that it can help bring about democracy.
The above is a speech delivered at the Asia Society of Hong Kong luncheon on April 17.
