KUALA LUMPUR: The Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) is prepared to provide technical and forensic assistance to the Royal Malaysian Police to curb the use of social websites for militant activities.
MCMC Monitoring and Enforcement division chief Zulkarnain Mohd Yasin said, however, the agency’s involvement in monitoring and checking could only be carried out with the agreement of the police because it was under the latter’s jurisdiction.
“Militant or terrorist activities can be investigated under Section 130 of the Penal Code. But, to date, the MCMC has not received any application from the police or relevant Islamic religious departments on the matter.”
He was commenting on a newspaper report on Friday on the openness of Malaysian militants in Syria in sharing their jihad (holy war) experience in that country on social websites.
However, Zulkarnain said blocking was limited because every social website, such as Facebook and YouTube, had its own terms and conditions.
“Not all contents uploaded onto Facebook or YouTube can be blocked because this can adversely affect other contents on the social website for other users.”
Nevertheless, the administrator of the social websites could take firm action against the owners of the account uploading contents that were militant in nature, he said.
The public is encouraged to
report directly to Facebook and YouTube any social media account that flouted the terms and conditions.
On Friday, Deputy Home Minister Datuk Dr Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar was quoted as saying police were tracking websites and blogs promoting fake jihad and militant movements to the public.
He said police would tightly monitor websites, especially social media ones, used to recruit militants for Syria and Iraq. Bernama