Over 70% of content removal requests involved online gambling, scams: Malaysia regulator

PETALING JAYA - The Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC), denying that it was being used to silence criticisms against the government, said in a statement that 72 per cent of its requests for the removal of content across all social media platforms involved online gambling and scams.

“As of June 13, 53 per cent of online content removal requests by MCMC across all platforms were related to online gambling.

“Additionally, 19 per cent involved online scams, 15 per cent were identified as fake news, 6 per cent were related to race, religion, and royalty (the 3Rs), and 5 per cent involved harassment,” it said.

MCMC said that ensuring a safe online environment was a shared goal between the regulatory body and social media platforms.

“To this end, social media platforms routinely and consistently perform proactive removal themselves against content that violate their community standards,” it said.

It denied that it was being used to prevent public discourse on issues relating to the government or its policies, adding that this suggested that the government and other regulatory bodies could not tolerate criticism.

“This perception is inaccurate and does not reflect the operations of MCMC and social media platforms,” it said.

Malaysia reportedly made 1,862 requests to TikTok for the removal of certain content in the second half of 2023 – more than any other country.

The nation that made the second-most requests during that period was Australia, with just 651 votes.

TikTok said it received a total of 2,202 requests from Malaysia in 2023, as opposed to 70 requests the preceding year.

Similarly, Meta said it had restricted around 8,600 pieces of content in Malaysia the whole of 2023, a staggering increase from the 553 content restrictions imposed in 2022.

Malaysia had entered 2023 under the new leadership of Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim and his unity government, following the 15th General Election which was held in November 2022.

MCMC said it would only submit requests to online platforms if there was content deemed to have breached community standards or Malaysian laws, adding that the actual removal of such content was based on the platform’s own assessments.

It added that 1.8 million pieces of online content were proactively removed by “one of the social media platforms” in the fourth quarter of 2023 without any request from the authorities.

“These include content promoting bullying and harassment, privacy violations, hate speech, misinformation, spam, coordinated inauthentic behaviour, misinformation that directly contributes to interference with the functioning of the political process, and certain highly deceptive manipulated media.

“Although criticism of the government or politicians is allowed, there are legal limitations to media freedom, particularly when it comes to sensitive issues such as the 3Rs,” it added. THE STAR/ASIA NEWS NETWORK