KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) – Malaysia is seeking the commitment of social media platforms to tackle cybercrimes ranging from scams, cyberbullying and child pornography, its communications minister said on Wednesday, as the government looks to clamp down on harmful content online.
Malaysia reported a sharp increase in harmful social media content earlier this year and urged social media firms, including Facebook parent Meta and short video platform TikTok, to step up monitoring on their platforms.
In the first three months of 2024, the government referred 51,638 cases to social media platforms for further action, up from 42,904 cases recorded in the whole of last year, according to the Malaysian authorities.
Communications Minister Fahmi Fadzil said the regulator has issued directives to social media firms to provide feedback on the government’s concerns regarding cybercrime and harmful content found on their platforms.
“There are platforms that are more willing to cooperate (with the government) and there are those whose cooperation isn’t satisfactory,” he told a regular media briefing on Wednesday.
Fahmi said Meta had the highest compliance rate with the government’s request to remove harmful content found on its platforms, with Facebook recording a compliance rate of 85%, Instagram at 88% and WhatsApp with 79%.
TikTok, owned by China’s ByteDance, had a compliance rate of 76%, messaging platform Telegram at 65% and X at 25%, Fahmi added, without providing details on how the rates were measured.
Meta, X, TikTok and Telegram did not immediately respond to requests for comments.
Fahmi said Malaysia’s communications regulator could flag content that contravened local laws to social media firms, but it was up to the platforms to decide on removing content that goes against their own community guidelines.
Malaysian authorities deem online gambling, scams, child pornography and grooming, cyberbullying and content related to race, religion and royalty as harmful.
Meta and TikTok restricted a record number of social media posts and accounts in Malaysia in the first six months of 2023, data published by the firms last year showed.
(Reporting by Rozanna Latiff and Danial Azhar; Editing by Martin Petty and John Mair and Miral Fahmy)
