Tun Mahathir’s FB page admin curtails freedom of speech, deletes and bans netizens’ comments

KUALA LUMPUR, June 24 – Hundreds of comments have been deleted by the administrator of Dr. Mahathir bin Mohamad’s official Facebook page tonight, curtailing freedom of speech.

Out of more than 1500 comments, around 500 comments are no longer visible at the time of writing (1am).

Below screencapture shows that only 987 comments are visible, although 1500 comments were recorded by Facebook.

NMT’s Managing Editor’s own comment had been deleted (or hidden) and he has been banned from commenting further, as the comment function has now disappeared from his view.

“I got banned on Atuk’s FB page!” Mujahidin Zulkiffli wrote on his Facebook.

His comment calling out the admin of the page as cowards can no longer be found.

Many other FB users have questioned why their comments were deleted and one even joked that the admins are not lazy poking fun at Tun Mahathir’s rhetorics about Malays being lazy.

“Who says Malays are lazy?

“Malay admins are working hard and fast at midnight to delete thousands of comments and blocking netizens siding Najib Razak,” says one Nazir Zabit.

Tun Mahathir’s post about Najib and defending his children for never receiving government contracts had been hit hard by Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s followers after the latter released a long reply showing that Tun Mahathir’s children had indeed benefited from bailouts, contracts and grants when he was Prime Minister in the 90s and early 2000’s.

The act of deleting netizens’ comments and banning users remind many of the lack of freedom of speech during Tun Mahathir’s first term as Prime Minister.

Dr. Mahathir bin Mohamad’s page is a verified page.

-NMT