Thread by @walski69

If there’s a silver lining to Saifuddin Abdullah’s #FINASFUBAR it’s the general public’s realization that the FINAS Act is as relevant to the 21st century as a 56K dialup modem is relevant to today's Internet experience.

Read the act here: agc.gov.my/agcportal/uplo…

[Cont.]

The act was enacted and gazetted in 1981. For those of you not born yet then, in 1981 there was no Astro and all you had was RTM TV1 & TV2 to entertain you on television.

The act was drafted to facilitate the development of Malaysia’s film industry (let’s not go there)

[Cont.]

So yeah, the act is archaic, to put it mildly. But it’s still an active law.

It defines “film” to include "feature films, short films, short subject films, trailers, documentaries, advertising filmlets and any recording on material of any kind…”

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“… including video tapes and video discs, of moving images, accompanied or unaccompanied by sound, for viewing by the public or any class of the public.”

So in the 21st century, in the age of social media, this encompasses EVERYTHING with the “moving image” attribute.

[Cont.]

To my recollection, the Al Jazeera news report is the first time the FINAS Act has been invoked by the government to counter a media report. Yesterday’s reply by Saifuddin Abdullah in Parliament follows from how the govt has very heavy-handedly responded to the video.

[Cont.]

While the Malaysian government *could* have issued its own report to counter the AJ piece (like most rational governments around the world would probably do), the decision was to go full Rambo on Al Jazeera, with all the blunt tools in their arsenal.

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As to the “possible” plausible denial of being “misquoted”, “taken out of context”, etc. that politicians are famous for invoking, in this particular case it would be a bit difficult, since it’s documented as part of yesterday’s sitting.
[images obtained from @bumilangit’s tweet]

Having given a cursory look at the act, the FINAS Act does not cover news reporting, although the medium (video) does fall under the act’s broad definition of “film”.

Not surprising, since this was written in 1981. To put into context, CNN was only 1 year old in 1981.

[Cont.]

So, if the letter of the FINAS Act were to be applied to news (video) coverage, and moving image visuals of a Breaking News item would only be able to LEGALLY be broadcast no less than 7 days AFTER the event.

Ridiculous? Yeah, I think so, too.

[Cont.]

It does make me wonder who advised Saifuddin Abdullah to invoke the FINAS Act to counter the Al Jazeera report though.

That person would not be very bright, if you asked Walski.

So let’s see how this 40-ft container full of opened cans of worms is gonna be handled…

[Cont.]

In the meantime, all you TikTokers and YouTubers better have all your FINAS licenses in place if you wanna continue posting them on social media.

‘Cos you never know when the Film Police are gonna come a-knockin’… 🤣

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