Ian Miles Cheong Posts About Malaysia, As X Users Speculate About Consequences For His Pro Israel Comments

Ian Miles Cheong, the right-wing influencer and political pundit well-known on X, posted about his love for his home country of Malaysia on Saturday after an online beef with another X account spilled into the pages of a local Malaysian newspaper.

Cheong, an outspoken right-wing commentator, posts dozens of times a day on X / Twitter about American politics despite reportedly never having been to the U.S. and living his entire life in Malaysia.

On Thursday, an anti-Israel troll account called @CensoredMen posted a long thread criticizing Cheong and breaking down his career from his beginnings in video game journalism through his current status as a conservative X personality. @CensoredMen also pointed out Cheong's pro-Israel posting, arguing it went against the values of most Malaysians, who are three-quarters Muslim.

The thread went in-depth on Cheong's removal from Reddit for systematically abusing his moderator position on a variety of popular subreddits between 2008 and 2012. The viral thread also argued that Cheong hides the fact he is Malaysian in order to attract a more lucrative American and European online audience. @CensoredMen itself is a notably a controversial account itself as well.

The New Strait Times, a Malaysian newspaper, picked up on the thread and discussions around it on Friday, implying that Cheong could be prosecuted for alleged sedition under Malaysian law because of his many pro-Israel statements online amid the ongoing war.

As the discussion went viral over the weekend, online opponents of Cheong joked about the notorious poster's execution in the majority Muslim country for his pro-Israel comments. Others hoped that Elon Musk would save Cheong from any possible prosecution.

No charges appear to have been filed against Cheong in Malaysia, however, and Cheong later told the New Strait Times# that he was not pro-Israel, and it was simply "left-wing and transgender sources" pushing that narrative about him in the media.

Since then, Cheong has continued to post almost hourly about Trump, Biden and American elections.