452 Peguam Negara Malaysia v. MKINI Dotcom Sdn Bhd & Anor [2021] 2 MLRA [43] The cases referred to earlier on online publication demonstrate the difficulties faced by the court in pinning down the role of publication on the internet content provider when the comments were made and posted by third parties. [44] It must be to resolve this difficulty that the Malaysian Parliament enacted s 114A of the Evidence Act. The provision as the wordings suggests an aim at presuming responsibility of publication on the internet platform provider by dedicating specifically s 114A to such a subject. To better appreciate the law, it is useful to reproduce here that provision in extensor: “Presumption of fact in publication 114A. (1) A person whose name, photograph or pseudonym appears on any publication depicting himself as the owner, host, administrator, editor or sub-editor, or who in any manner facilitates to publish or re-publish the publication is presumed to have published or re-published the contents of the publication unless the contrary is proved. (2) A person who is registered with a network service provider as a subscriber of a network service on which any publication originates from is presumed to be the person who published or re-published the publication unless the contrary is proved. (3) Any person who has in his custody or control any computer on which any publication originates from is presumed to have published or republished the content of the publication unless the contrary is proved. (4) For the purpose of this section: (a) “network service” and "network service provider" have the meaning assigned to them in s 6 of the Communications and Multimedia Act 1998 [Act 588]; and (b) “publication” means a statement or a representation, whether in written, printed, pictorial, film, graphical, acoustic or other form displayed on the screen of a computer.” [45] The presumption may be invoked against any person whose name appears on the publication as either the owner, host, administrator, editor, or subeditor. It is beyond argument that Malaysiakini as the 1st respondent depicted itself as the host to the publication and by virtue of s 114A(1), Malaysiakini is presumed to have published the impugned comments. We will deal with the possible presumption against the 2nd respondent later. [46] With the presumption in place, in our view the AG had overcome the hurdle of imputing responsibility of the publication on the 1st respondent. The term “presumption” properly describes the process whereby, upon the proof of the required basic fact or facts, the existence of the presumed fact may be inferred from it (see Alma Nudo Atenza v. PP & Another Appeal [2019] 3 MLRA 1; Abdullah Atan v. PP & Other Appeals [2020] 6 MLRA 28, C Tapper, Cross &

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