KUALA LUMPUR: The recently introduced licensing requirement on social media and messaging platforms is not intended to block or ban the platforms, said Communications Minister Fahmi Fadzil.
"Malaysia does not intend to block or ban any social media platform. We see, definitely, that there is value", he said in an interview with Channel News Asia.
Fahmi, who is also Lembah Pantai member of parliament, stated that the country is a healthy market for social media sites due to the affordability of Internet access.
"Because of our very, one would say, cost effective, if not cheap, data prices compared to others around the region, we have seen a marked increase in the amount data used by Malaysians, and people in Malaysia using somewhere upward from 30 to 50 gigabytes per person per month," he said.
However, the spread of social media use in the country has become a double-edged sword, especially when it comes to crime.
"When we look at the amount of crime that has migrated to cyberspace, largely on social media platforms, we can see that social media is both a boon and a bane", Fahmi said.
Fahmi said takedown requests to social media sites, as authorised by law through the Communications and Multimedia Act 1998, were mostly surrounding scams and online gambling.
"That takes up maybe, easily, 76 to 77 per cent of all takedown requests," he said.
MCMC's licensing requirement begins tomorrow (Aug 1) and will be enforced from Jan 1 next year.
In a statement, the commission said that the regulatory framework was in line with the cabinet's decision requiring social media and online messaging platforms to comply with Malaysian laws and combat cybercrime.
Previously, social media sites and online messaging platforms were exempted from licensing based on the Communications and Multimedia (Licencing) (Exemption) Order 2000.