The Communications and Multimedia Act 1998 (Act 588) will be amended after its proposal was approved by the Cabinet meeting last Friday and is expected to be tabled in Parliament this December. This was according to the answer given by Deputy Minister of Communications, Teo Nie Ching during the Dewan Rakyat session today.
Among the amendments that will be made is the introduction of a new section to strengthen enforcement. Through it, the Royal Malaysian Police (PDRM) will have the power to request social media platform providers to hand over data about account users to facilitate investigations.
The government will also table the Online Security Bill in the near future to curb criminal activities on social media including fake news.
In addition, he said, it is very important for social media platform providers such as Meta, ByteDance and Google to further tighten the guidelines for opening new accounts, such as requiring users to enter their phone numbers.