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Showing posts with the label civil society

Malaysia Kita: Why Online Debates Go Nowhere

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Malaysia Kita: Why Online Debates Go Nowhere Spend five minutes in any Malaysian comment section and you’ll witness a phenomenon that deserves its own national monument: the debate that goes absolutely nowhere. Not slowly nowhere. Not thoughtfully nowhere. Fast, loud, confident… nowhere. Welcome to Malaysia’s favourite sport after badminton and traffic complaining—online arguing. It usually starts simple enough. A post. A headline. A video. Someone shares an opinion. Then someone disagrees. Fair. Healthy. Normal. And then—boom. “Eh you don’t understand the issue.” “You clearly biased.” “Typical mentality.” “Do your research lah.” Within minutes, the conversation is no longer about the topic. It’s about winning. And once the goal becomes winning, the debate is already dead. Let’s be honest—Malaysians don’t debate online to understand. We debate to dominate. To prove we’re right. To show we’re smarter. To get that last comment that feels like a knockout pu...
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The Decline of Civil Society: Has Online Peer Culture Replaced the Family as the Primary Socialiser?

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The Decline of Civil Society: Has Online Peer Culture Replaced the Family as the Primary Socialiser? There was a time—not very long ago—when families did the difficult job of shaping human behaviour. Parents taught manners. Grandparents enforced values. Uncles and aunties acted as unofficial social referees who made sure you didn’t grow up thinking the world revolved around your personal feelings. Today, that job appears to have been outsourced. Not to teachers. Not to community leaders. To the internet. Specifically, to online peer culture , where millions of strangers with questionable judgment collectively decide what behaviour is acceptable, what opinions are trendy, and what level of public outrage is required for the day. In other words, welcome to the modern classroom where the syllabus is written by algorithms and the teachers are whoever shouts the loudest on social media. And we are surprised when things go wrong. Families used to be the first place where ...
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