PUTRAJAYA: Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim has accepted an apology from social media giant Meta for "erroneously" removing his postings that expressed his condolences over the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh.
Communications Minister Fahmi Fadzil hoped the incident would not recur.
He said the concern was conveyed to Meta's representatives during a meeting yesterday, which was also attended by representatives from the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) and Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission.
"We hope Meta will communicate with the PMO on such matters before removing posts by the prime minister.
"During yesterday's meeting, I asked Meta to give the prime minister the same treatment that other country leaders get," he said after his ministry's monthly assembly today.
Fahmi, who is the unity government spokesman, said the prime minister's social media posts were removed in accordance with Meta's guidelines, but the rules could change from time to time.
These guidelines, considered as living documents, would be changed according to current geopolitical issues.
He said at one time, the word "syahid" was banned on Facebook, but was now no longer an issue.
He said Meta had an independent body to study complaints against the removal of posts on its platforms.
"The government does not wish to restrict or ban social media platforms, but would consider preparing code of conducts' guidelines.
"We hope to at least have the first version ready by Dec 31, as the implementation of the licensing requirement for social media platforms takes effect from Jan 1."
Earlier, Fahmi said postings with pictures of Anwar speaking to and hugging Haniyeh in May were also taken down on July 30, just a day before the latter's assassination.
He said no Meta engineers were present at the meeting yesterday, and the representatives were unable to provide further explanation of the "technical error" cited for the removal of Anwar's Facebook and Instagram postings on July 31.
"I wish to highlight that the Madani government has been very vocal in defending the Palestinian struggle.
"This could make Malaysia a target for those who are not comfortable with our stance."
He said Malaysia was a sovereign country that would continue to fight for the Palestinian struggle.
Fahmi also took Meta to task over its Facebook system that wrongly translated RTM's content during the installation of His Majesty Sultan Ibrahim, King of Malaysia, at Istana Negara on July 20.
He also questioned the disruption to RTM's live broadcast of the Himpunan Pembebasan Palestin rally yesterday.
These, he said, were unacceptable but Meta's representatives could only smile without giving a satisfactory explanation.
"This is the reason we agreed to licence the platforms; not to shut down the people, but due to the migration of crimes to cyberspace.
"During a briefing with CID (Criminal Investigation Department) and CCID (Commercial Crime Investigation Department) on Wednesday, I was told that losses due to scammers on Facebook alone have totalled RM432 million last year," he said.
Meta had earlier apologised for erroneously removing Anwar's social media postings on its platforms.
It said it was sorry for "an operational error", adding that the contents had been restored with "the correct newsworthy label", a Meta spokesperson told Reuters.