It is said to be launching powerful malware by minutely restricting citizen freedom including citizen journalists and independent content creators. Therefore, it maintains a strict censorship regime banning access to foreign news outlets, search engines, social media platforms. Such a requirement proves to be a death knell for independent social media publishers particularly journalist who cover politics in particular. In addition to this, fake news and misinformation have also become a legitimate problem through these independent accounts leading to a crackdown on critical journalism. The amalgamation of social media under certain regulation into traditional press means that these independent social media platforms will have to take account of the content moderation, thus resulting in a complete crackdown on online news freedom through social media platforms.

Source: The Star February 25, 2021 12:08 UTC