The portal urges readers to act maturely when posting their comments on stories.
PETALING JAYA: Free Malaysia Today news portal has come under criticism from a prominent blogger for allowing comments that were “deplorable, provocative and simply disgusting” on the site.
Blogger Apanama, in his posting on Saturday, had said that a comment made by one particular reader to a story relating to Senator Mohd Ezam Mohd Nor’s threat to burn down news portals was clearly “raw provocation”.
The comment was made on a story published last Friday where Ezam had threatened to burn down online news portals Malaysiakini and The Malaysian Insider.
Ezam had said that these portals took a strong stance against the action of JAIS (Selangor Islamic Religious Department) in “raiding” the Damansara Utama Methodist Church (DUMC).
Ezam was speaking to a crowd of about 500 supporters at the Selangor State mosque in Shah Alam.
User “10th commandments” had posted his comment on this news report, targeting Islam, its Prophet Muhammad S.A.W, and even took a stab at Ezam’s wife.
Apanama had criticisd FMT in his Aug 13 post, saying that such comments of “gross contempt” for the Islamic religion and Muslims in the country were “truly worrying”.
He voiced support for a more severe reprimand for those who “blatantly breached existing law” which disrupts the peace of “our multiracial and multireligious country”.
He also warned those who harboured such hatred not to “play with fire”.
“I hope those who are hellbent on testing the patience of Muslims in this holy month of Ramadan not to continue playing with fire, and live to regret it later,” he said in his blog posting.
FMT says sorry
Commenting on the matter, FMT managing editor Phlip Rodrigues said the particular insensitive comment has been removed as soon as the news portal was alerted about it.
He also apologised to all affected parties, including Ezam, over the offensive comment posted by the reader.
He urged FMT readers to be more mature and to have an intellectual discussion over issues and not resort to “cheap, offensive and childish arguments”.
He said that FMT comments are not fully moderated but there is a mechanism in place that filters through offensive words.
“Despite this, it is still possible for some offensive remarks to get through. We have asked our readers to flag offensive comments when they come across any,” he said.
FMT’s comment section also has a “report” function where editors can be alerted of such offensive comments.
FMT also clarified that comments posted by readers do no reflect the opinion or views of the news portal, and are the personal opinions of the readers.
All FMT stories also carry a note stating:
‘Please mind your language when making comments. Should you post something derogatory, offensive or otherwise break the law, we reserve the right to remove the comment. We also appreciate reports of abuse from our readers.”
