PUTRAJAYA: The Government's plan to register all bloggers using locally hosted websites is merely to collect a data rather then to censor the contents, Deputy Energy, Water and Communications Minister Datuk Shaziman Abu Mansor said.

He said the Government's move should not be misconstrued as hindering bloggers from continuing with their activities.

"The plan to register bloggers is merely to assess the situation and keep track on how many bloggers there are in the country and on the information provided by them.

"It has nothing to do with censoring the contents in the blogs," he said, adding that the plan to register had yet to be finalised by the Government.

Shaziman also said Singapore had started registering its bloggers while Thailand, China and Middle East countries practiced censorship of its local blogs.

He was clarifying his statement made in Parliament earlier this week that the plan to register bloggers was a measure by the Government to prevent the spread of negative or malicious content on the Internet. [source]