By 2013, she had built a network of 80 cybertroopers who ran thousands of fake social media accounts, that created and amplified falsehoods to undermine opposition to the government.
A decade on, the playbook that she developed for online misinformation is a familiar one. She and her colleagues worked to delegitimise political opponents by fabricating supporters who would make outrageous, usually racist statements, that would drive anger against the main opposition parties.
“We would take names and pictures from [social media accounts in] Indonesia or the Philippines and make a fake account, acting like an opposition supporter. We’d come up with racist statements… then we’d print screen and spread it everywhere,” she says in an interview in her lawyer’s office in Kuala Lumpur.
If a major story broke that would damage the government, her network would create a distraction. “If an issue like [a major corruption scandal] comes up, people get angry. But you throw out an issue like: ‘this Chinese fella mocks our people’, they will focus on that.”
“I gave him a script,” Syarul Ema says. “I asked him to say: ‘if you love your religion, you need to go and vote and make sure that the DAP loses’.” The DAP lost the seat by 500 votes.
She was kept at arm’s length, an independent consultant running her own team of volunteers who were tasked with solving problems. Her account tallies with those of others who spoke to WIRED; that they were given a basic direction by the party, but that their tactics were of their own devising. “They call it ‘Black Ops’,” she says. “Cyberwar. Propaganda.”
A former “cybertrooper” today revealed how her past 13th general election online campaign for the former ruling coalition helped solidify perceived “racial tensions” between different ethnic communities in Malaysia.
Syarul Ema Rena Abu Samah, also known online as Ratu Naga (Malay for “Dragon Empress”), told a forum organised by the Cooler Lumpur Festival at the Publika shopping mall here that the work she did create videos which portrayed Malays as being marginalised and exploited by other ethnic groups.
“In GE13, I did a video playing up racial issues, especially among the Indians and the Chinese. At that time, a lot of people were angry with DAP,” she told a forum titled “Kasi Viral: The Spread of Racial Disinformation in Malaysia.”
Syarul Ema explained how in that video, actors were employed to portray how difficult it was for Malays to find gainful employment, and how they were rejected by would-be ethnic Chinese employers because of their race.
“The video became viral, about how the Chinese will say ‘no Malays’ to Malays seeking jobs and how Indians became bosses in many job fields. The actors, the editing I did it all myself.
“I spread the video through WhatsApp, because the issue of race and religion is very sensitive, and if I had shared it on Facebook, many people would have sued me,” she claimed.
She claimed at that time she had over 500 WhatsApp groups in her phone to share these types of content, and that these groups comprised of BN, PAS and even Pakatan Rakyat supporters.
“I even had groups for ‘cari jodoh!’” she exclaimed to laughter from the audience, referring to groups of those seeking soulmates.
Syarul Ema says she now regrets what she did in the past, and has “repented.”
“I feel bad when I see people fighting about race and religion on Facebook because I feel that I had a part in it,” she said.
Another panellist, academic Gayathry Venkiteswaran said that a rising concern is how people often shared information on WhatsApp, even though it has not necessarily been verified, and if it reinforces certain perceptions or stereotypes.
She also pointed out how some media organisations further entrenched racial divisions by the language used in stories and how they are framed.
“There have been certain types of languages used against minorities. It is always used to describe them as the ‘other.’
“We end up viewing everything from a racial lens,” she said.
Sometimes they targeted specific politicians. One 2014 post that she showed to WIRED was a faked quote from DAP Teresa Kok, an opposition member of parliament. Kok had been arrested in May of that year and charged with sedition for a YouTube video in which she allegedly made jokes about Malaysia being an unsafe place to live. Syarul Ema’s post shows Kok saying that she saw nothing wrong with offending Malays—tacitly admitting to the charges. Kok filed a police report.
Last year, it metastasised. In May when university lecturer Kamarul Zaman Yusoff put a post on Facebook alleging that Yeoh’s 2014 memoir, Becoming Hannah, which includes a discussion of the role of her Christian faith in her decision to enter politics, presented a persuasive case for Christianity. The stories in it, he said, could “coax, influence and instigate” people to convert, and thus amounted to proselytising—a crime in Malaysia, where two systems of law, civil and shariah, run in parallel.
That post went viral and splintered into a massive campaign of misinformation, as other social media users – many anonymous – took the original half-truth and evolved it. Meme-style doctored quotes pasted onto her image spread on Facebook and WhatsApp, alleging that she had called for the establishment of a Christian state in Malaysia, that she was an overt supporter of Israel. They circulated quickly, in part because the medium allowed it – more than half of Malaysians use WhatsApp to share, find or discuss news, according to 2017 research from the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism – and in part, because so many people were primed to believe it.
Yeoh is an ethnically Chinese Christian in a country where the majority of the population are Malay Muslims, and where identity politics has always been a pathway to electoral success. The allegations against her were designed to play into long-held and deeply-rooted conspiracy theories—that outsiders, Christians and the Chinese have a plan to undermine Malaysia’s religion, culture and heritage. Yeoh had unwittingly become the latest, but by no means the only, avatar for those fears.
Source : Malay Mail
Source : Wired
Ratu Naga nabbed over national anthem claim
Pro-Perikatan Nasional activist Syarul Ema Rena Abu Samah, better known as “Ratu Naga”, was arrested today over a claim that pupils at a Chinese school in Perak had sung the national anthem in Chinese.
Syarul was arrested by the Perak police, her lawyer, Zaid Malek, said in a statement.
“The arrest was made under the Sedition Act and Section 233 of the Communication and Multimedia Act 1998,” he said, insisting that there is no criminal offence from what she said in the now-deleted video.
Section 233 of the CMA deals with the improper use of network facilities.
Zaid urged the police and the government to stop this “unnecessary” probe against Syarul.
Last week, police said they were investigating the activist for claiming that pupils at a Chinese school in Perak had sung the national anthem in Chinese.
Three police reports were lodged against her.
Syarul had earlier apologised over her erroneous claim.
Hilir Perak police chief Bakri Zainal Abidin was reported as saying the video was recorded on June 6 last year at a school in Teluk Intan and the pupils were actually singing the Perak state anthem.
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