The morning after - Fahmi Fadzil calls off DNS redirection after public backlash

Screenshot 2024-09-09 101047.png

Over the weekend, news of Domain Name System (DNS) redirection was a hot topic, and Malaysians were united in protesting against it. Thankfully, our Communication Minister Ahmad Fahmi bin Mohamed Fadzil has decided to call it off, allowing the internet speeds to be back to normal.

While the goal of redirecting DNS is to block harmful websites (online gambling, pornography, copyright violations, scams, and other illegal activities), it made our mobile data internet speeds atrociously slow during the weekend. The move also affected many non-harmful websites that rely on Google's (8.8.8.8 or 8.8.4.4) and Cloudflare's DNS (1.1.1.1 or 1.0.0.1), and we imagine this affected many businesses too.

As mentioned, this made Malaysians break out online complaining of the poor execution and criticising the government for abusing its power, becoming authoritarian-like such as North Korea and China (as seen on Twitter X and Reddit). With this, Fahmi stated that he has asked MCMC not to proceed with the implementation of redirecting DNS, after taking account of the general public's outcry.

While the program is stopped (for now), Fahmi said that MCMC will continue to engage with stakeholders to obtain views, suggestions and recommendations to ensure that the objective of a safer internet can be achieved together. He also emphasized that the government will not compromise the online safety of Malaysians, especially children and families to access online crime issues.

On the other hand, MCMC also tried to defend itself by saying the DNS rule is not cruel as it was meant to protect vulnerable groups (but badly backfired). If you want to understand more about DNS redirection, you can check out our news coverage right over here.