Gresham's law, the economic principle that bad money drives out good, may well have a corollary in the use of the Internet among Malaysians: False information drives out correct information; fiction drives out fact; and bad ideas overcome good ones.

Recent events have shown how suspect information was spread over the Net only to emerge into public discourse and be rejected as either false or ill-founded. The rising tide of electronic anarchy is evident from rumours such as the Chow Kit riot, slanderous hisses and boos at some national leaders and the purported demise of the Prime Minister. Such abuses including spamming, mail-bombing and other follies by irresponsible users have compelled the authorities to formulate the Code of Ethics for Internet Users.

This may sound alarming to cyber purists who believe in the Net as the Land of the Free. But the Code is far from any semblance of Government surveillance or encroachment into the privacy of users. Nor is it a form of censorship.

As logic dictates, it does not make sense for the Government to swoop in on the users and constrict their freedom when it has long been fostering an IT-savvy society and pushing the country to the forefront with the Multimedia Super Corridor. Certainly, the Government is well aware that any move to restrict cyber movement may have adverse effects on the desired progress of the MSC and worse, open itself to charges of violations of the MSC's Bills of Guarantees.

The Code will not obstruct the recording, collection and dissemination of information on the Net. It is meant to prevent the abuse of the freedom to access any information available on the Net. It will advocate the dos and don'ts for the present 500,000 users to enable them to have a clear idea of the demarcation between responsible and repulsive behaviour.

Although not legally binding, it is ultimately designed to create a discerning cyber society with a responsible cyber culture. If observed by all and sundry, shameful incidents where users registered with Malaysian Internet Service Providers were blocked from accessing chat sites run by US-based DALnet for abusing its chat site facilities will not recur.

Technology is harnessed to liberate the people from ignorance, not to enslave them to the fear of the unproven, and to advance the people forward - not step backward. The curious and information-hungry use the Net as a more intensive information source which is more personal, accessible, timely and complete than the print media and the television. But such freedom is not divorced of self -responsibility.

But ill-informed prejudice and cynicism do not readily accord the users with a sense of duty. In search of insight that will catapult their prejudices into a belief as indissoluble and sacred as any other form of ideology, they are willing to discard the cardinal rule of information-gathering - sieve the data and discard the false.

Users should not abuse the Net as a technological grapevine. Borrowing the words from George Steiner's Proofs, an arresting novella of Communism's 1989 collapse, they should be wary of playing the role as "earthly messiahs (who) turned out to be nothing but hypocritical hoodlums. Lords of Lice".

Exchange opinions, not malice. Disseminate information, not lies. Debate the issues to reach better understanding of events and government policy so as to bring improvement, not anarchy.