Twitter earlier this week has shut down a popular Malaysian Twitter account, Bermana which is known for parodying the national news agency, Bernama. Before its suspension by Twitter, the account has managed to collect more than 30,000 followers and is well-known among local netizens.
As Bermana’s materials mainly revolved around satire on Malaysian politics, the account has since long attracted the attention of local authorities. Back in October, the Chairman of Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC), Dr Fadhlullah Suhaimi Abdul Malek has specifically mentioned Bermana as an example of a parody account after stating that agencies and individuals are within their own right to take civil action against the operators or owners of parody social media accounts.
However, it is only this week that Twitter itself has dropped the banhammer on Bermana. The reason given by the popular social network is that the popular parody account has breached Twitter’s rules, as you can see when you visit the Twitter page of the now-defunct account.
The move by Twitter has since been applauded by MCMC in an announcement published earlier today. That being said, the suspension is not the end of Bermana though as the team behind it has set up another parody Twitter account called Bawangmana which is a clear reference to “membawang”, a well-known local slang for gossiping.
(Main image: LagaCawan.)
