Putrajaya should rethink absolute freedom on the Internet, Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad has said, reversing his previous guarantee that Malaysia would never censor online content. The former prime minister, an avid blogger, told The New Sunday Times in an interview published today that countries should now enforce some form of regulatory control to block “filth” and punish those who corrupt the minds of Internet users.

This is why in June 2012, he first said he regretted making that no-Internet-censorship promise, and called for greater regulation. “When I said there should be no censorship of the Internet, I really did not realise the power of the Internet, the power to undermine moral values, the power to create problems and agitate people,” he was quoted as saying by The New Sunday Times. He reiterated that call in his blog on Aug 1 this year, coincidentally after Facebook prevented linking to an earlier blog post of his in which he wrote about the Jews. “Not knowing the power of the Internet, I promised that we (speaking as the Prime Minister of Malaysia) would not censor it. But today I have changed my mind.”