KUALA LUMPUR: A total of 249,268 pieces of content on Facebook have been taken down to date, based on requests from the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC).
Communications Minister Fahmi Fadzil said of this total, 172,072 pieces were related to online gambling, while 56,136 were linked to scams.
"The police's Criminal Investigation Department and the Commercial Crime Investigation Department, in their report, noted a concerning trend of traditional crimes moving to social media.
"The prevalence of online gambling and scam content is most significant on Facebook.
"If some members of parliament still wish to defend Facebook/Meta (from being licensed), it should be noted that, to date, a total of 249,268 pieces of content on Facebook have been requested by the MCMC for removal.
"Of the total, 172,072 were related to online gambling, and 56,136 were related to scams.
"This means that 91.6 percent of the total content removed pertains to online gambling and scams," he said during his ministry's winding-up speech for the 2025 Supply Bill.
He said MCMC cannot instruct platform providers to take down content but "can only request it".
It is then up to the platforms whether they take it down or not, he said.
"Not all requests made by MCMC to platform providers come from me, as anyone can lodge a complaint with the commission.
"I was not informed, and MCMC didn't seek my confirmation before taking action, as they have the authority to contact the social media platform directly.
"This is not true (that requests came from the government).
"If any post is taken down by platform providers, it means the post has violated the respective platform's community standards."