Communications Minister Datuk Fahmi Fadzil today said Meta and X are not doing enough to curb cyberbullying, scams and harmful online content on their platforms. He made the statement during the launch of guidelines for reporting and sharing suicide-related content at Cybertorium Star Tower, Petaling Jaya today.
The guidelines were issued by the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Content Forum (CMCF). According to Fahmi, CMCF has been asked to engage with Meta and X and other industry players but so far they have refused to join. So far, only TikTok has voluntarily joined CMCF, which is an industry initiative without government intervention unlike the licensing of social media platforms announced last year.
According to data from the National Scam Response Centre (NSRC), as of August 2024, a total of 122,603 complaint calls have been received by the NSRC since its establishment in October 2022. According to the Ministry of Finance (MOF), the type of complaints received were for fraud and advisory services to the public with a total loss reported of RM371 million.
Last year in Singapore, more than half of online scam cases were carried out through Meta's platform. Although Meta said they deleted 2 million accounts involved in the pig slaughter scam last year, this issue still persists to the point of becoming a problem in the Southeast Asia region.
As of March this year, only Telegram, TikTok, and WeChat have received social media operating licenses effective from January 1, 2025. Meta, which operates Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram, has only expressed interest in meeting with MCMC to discuss a license application. Google previously did not agree that YouTube is categorized as social media. Finally, X insists that they do not have 8 million users in Malaysia that require a license to be applied for.