BN Sarawak cyber troopers needed more grooming and exposure on how to be ‘real cyber troopers'. - Tuan Haji Abdul Karim Rahman Hamzah
SIBU: The state BN’s cyber troopers are up and ready to ‘shoot’ down the opposition’s baseless allegations and lies as cyberspace has become a new political battlefield, especially with the looming General Election.
This is particularly so with the bulk of new voters being young voters who are IT-savvy and cyberspace has become the main source of information for the young generation.
State BN secretary-general Datuk Dr Stephen Rundi said yesterday they are fully prepared to fight the opposition in cyberspace.
“We have intensified our cyber troopers to counter the allegations and lies made by the opposition,” assured Dr Rundi, who is also Assistant Minister of Public Utilities (Electricity and Telecommunications).
He was asked to comment on BN Youth head Khairy Jamaluddin’s statement that the cyberspace represented the major platform to ensure victory for BN in the coming election.
Khairy was quoted by Bernama to have said more than 80 per cent of the approximately three million new voters were the generation aged below 40, who obtained their information from the social media and blogs as well as various cyber applications besides the mainstream media.
He was further quoted to have said that the BN Youth movement must be prepared to fight all slanderous information and lies spread by the opposition in cyberspace.
PBB supreme council member Abdul Karim Rahman Hamzah said younger voters used the Internet as a means of getting information and communicating with the outside world.
“This is especially so in urban areas or in areas with large voter concentration as there is not much personal contact between the voters and the people’s representatives or intending people’s representatives.
“In this kind of areas, the voters’ assessment of their representatives or intending representatives would most likely be through cyberspace or from information they get from cyberspace.
“It is thus very important for the parties associated with the representatives be proactive in promoting and ‘selling’ their candidates,” he noted.
Abdul Karim, who is Asajaya assemblyman and Assistant Minister of Youth Development, said in rural areas, however, especially in Sabah and Sarawak as well as the interiors of the Peninsula, the old style of ‘showing yourself’ in each and every village is still the norm.
“The voters in these places are not that IT-savvy and their voting trend would still be the ‘old style’…that is by personal evaluation of how the candidate ‘carry themselves’.
“If he is seen as friendly and caring, he will get the votes. But if he is seen as arrogant and snobbish, he will be despised.”
Abdul Karim said, “In Sarawak, BN has its media unit to address the cyber warfare…”
While this is so, he opined that BN Sarawak cyber troopers needed more grooming and exposure on how to be ‘real cyber troopers’.
No comments:
Post a Comment