Censorship is becoming a major issue in Malaysia, especially as the country is taking steps to modify itself as a contemporary knowledge-based economy. When talking about censorship in Malaysia, it is important to note that the country has one of the most stringent media censorship, having banned or censored more than a hundred movies. However, despite such censorship practices, the country’s internet remains free and open, still providing civil liberties to users. In the year 2008, the country was stated as “Partly Free” when it comes to the usage and access to internet, by the Freedom House, an American NGO that performs advocacy and research on human rights, political freedom, and democracy.
Internet Censorship in Malaysia
Until the year 2011, all the internet content in Malaysia remained completely uncensored, ensuring civil liberties to the country’s internet users. However, the government was often indicted of blocking sites that are politically sensitive. The authorities of the country frequently pledged that there will be no censorship rules imposed on the country’s internet and that self-censorship has to be practiced by parents in order to prevent their children from gaining access to indecent or illegal content, by making use of any censorship software. Also, the country’s Internet Service Providers (ISPs) did not place any filters to restrict access to websites or web services.
Despite all this, the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC), also commonly known as SKMM, ordered all the ISPs of the country to block several file-hosting and file-sharing websites, in addition to peer-to-peer traffic, in the year 2011. This blockade was ordered as those websites were found to violate the Copyright Act 1987 (Section 41), which has to do with pirated content. Hence, if you are a citizen of Malaysia, or an expat who has moved to the country on business or leisure, and if you wish to transfer important files with partners or colleagues in a different country, it would be extremely difficult for you to do so with such censorship being imposed on file-sharing websites, in Malaysia. Hence, your only choice would be to bypass this censorship, which can be done by following the process given below.
Bypass Malaysian Censorship
A Virtual Private Network (VPN) is the best tool you can rely on when it comes to bypassing any sort of internet censorship. This applies to the censorship enforced by the Malaysian government as well. The government has restricted access to file-sharing websites only to internet users in its region. It does this by identifying the user’s location with his or her IP address. When you access the website through a VPN connection, your Malaysian IP address will be replaced by a one from a different country (usually one of your choice), making the authorities believe that you are not present in Malaysia but elsewhere. This makes you access your regular file-sharing website and share your files with your partners, without having to face the censorship imposed by the MCMC.
Top 5 VPN Providers
Following are the top five VPN service providers that can help you bypass the file-sharing censorship put forward by the Malaysian government:
| Rank | Provider | Starting Price | Money Back | Visit Provider |
| 1 | ExpressVPN | $6.67 /Month | 30 Days |  |
| 2 | Hidemyass | $6.55/ Month | 30 Days | |
| 3 | iPVanish | $10.00/Month | 7 Days | |
| 4 | StrongVPN | $21/ 3 Months | 7 Days | |
| 5 | VyprVPN | $14.95/Month | 7 Days | |
