KUALA LUMPUR: The rapid rise of social media and online messaging services since at least 2008 necessitated a recent amendment to the Communications and Multimedia Act 1998 to strike a balance between freedom of expression and user safety.
Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) deputy managing director Datuk Zulkarnain Mohd Yasin said that when the law was first introduced, online platforms were omitted from the licensing aspect as the government wanted to encourage innovation and usage of these platforms, which were relatively new then.
However, he said today that due to their rapid development, MCMC analysis has revealed that some social media platforms, such as Facebook, which were initially intended for social interaction, now host harmful content, including child sexual abuse material, prostitution activities, online gambling promotions and financial scams.
"Crimes that previously occurred in the physical world have shifted to social media and applications, such as Facebook and WhatsApp.
"These did not exist in 1998, but now, with technological advancements, such crimes are facilitated by these platforms.
"It is time to protect users, especially children, to ensure a safer environment," Zulkarnain said during TV3's "Soal Rakyat" interview.
He added that this called for the recent amendment of the Communications and Multimedia Act 1998, which ensures responsibility among the platform providers to maintain control over their platforms, particularly in preventing the growth of criminal activities on their platforms and ensuring the safety of their users.
On Dec 9, the Dewan Rakyat approved the amendment to the Communications and Multimedia Act 1998 (Act 588), which Communication Minister Fahmi Fadzil stated was aimed at providing a safer and more sustainable Internet network ecosystem for all users.
Commenting on the licensing requirement, Zulkarnain said some users were confused, believing it would also apply to them and curtail their freedom of expression.
He said the license would apply only to platform providers with more than eight million users, such as Telegram and Facebook.
"Many are concerned that this could be seen as control over freedom of speech.
"Individuals with five to eight million followers are not required to be licensed, the ones we license are the platform providers.
"Users with (social media) pages do not need to obtain a license from MCMC and are not subject to this regulation," he said.
On Friday, Fahmi said the government had identified eight social media and online messaging platforms that will be required to obtain a licence under the Communications and Multimedia Act 1998 by next year.
He said the platforms included Meta's WhatsApp, Facebook and Instagram, Elon Musk's X (formerly Twitter), Google's YouTube, Pavel Durov's Telegram, Tencent's WeChat and ByteDance's TikTok.
He said these platforms had met the threshold of at least eight million users in the country, and added that they were not being specifically targeted.
Meanwhile Zulkarnain said that the freedom of expression in Malaysia was guaranteed but it was conditional based on the country's laws as per the Federal Constitution.
Despite the guarantee given to an individual, he said the rights of others to live peacefully among others must also be considered, particularly in the event of a clash of values.
Meanwhile, Zulkarnain called for social media users to enhance their digital literacy as criminals would not cease their activities despite the amended law.
He said the advancement of artificial intelligence would make it harder for users to distinguish legitimate content from illegal or wrong ones.