Alarm over surge of harmful content on social media

KUALA LUMPUR: Social media platform providers have been told to be more alert and proactive as harmful social media content detected in the first quarter of this year exceeded the whole of last year.

From January to March, a total of 51,638 cases were referred to online platform providers for further action.

“This number is high compared with 42,904 cases recorded for the whole of 2023,” the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) said in a joint statement with the Royal Malaysia Police (PDRM) yesterday.

MCMC urged providers like Meta (Facebook and Instagram) and ByteDance (TikTok) to take a holistic approach to such content, especially touching on 3R (race, religion and royalty) issues.

“Both platform providers were asked to step up and follow through with monitoring efforts owing to the increase in harmful online content.

“TikTok and Meta were asked to provide a comprehensive improvement and strategy plan to deal with such content effectively by referring to (their own) guidelines as well as Malaysian laws.

“In addition, TikTok and Meta are urged to curb non-compliant behaviour (coordinated inauthentic behaviour or CIB, using real and fake social media accounts to manipulate issues), as well as monitor and take immediate action against harmful content such as scams and illegal online gambling,” it said.

On Monday, the MCMC and PDRM met with representatives of the platform providers in Cyberjaya.

According to the joint statement, other matters discussed at during the meeting, chaired by Communications Minister Fahmi Fadzil, included ensuring online safety measures for children below the age of 13.

“We discussed online safety improvements, especially with the authentication process to ensure the minimum age for social media access is 13,” the statement said.

“This is to ensure that children are not affected by harmful content on social media.

“We also revisited the efficiency of the (platforms’ respective) artificial intelligence algorithm and capabilities of learning to detect 3R content, CIB and other harmful content,” the joint statement said.