The Malaysian government has ordered Internet service providers and telecommunications companies to offer censorship of online porn and other "undesirable" content.
The directive also mandates cyber cafe operators to make similar censorship available as conditions for their licensing.
Science, Technology, and Innovation Minister Seri Jamaluddin Jarjis was quoted as saying those offerings would come on a "cost recovery" basis to standard and mobile device users who would be allowed to choose whether to use the services.
Jamaluddin said the directive came out of a joint proposal between his ministry and the Energy, Water, and Communications Ministry in a bid to fight what he called the porn and "undesirable material" problem.
That followed reports last month that the government considered the problem of online porn to be very high in the country. It also followed a report at the beginning of this month that parental embarrassment about teaching their children about sexuality appears to result in kids looking to Internet porn to learn about sex.
The Malaysian news agency Bernama reported Jamaluddin saying the directive takes effect at once, enforceable by the country's Communications and Multimedia Commission, with Net and cell phone users able to ask their ISPs and telecoms to install the appropriate software into their computers or phones to block porn.
