Intolerance of criticisms inaccurate perception

The Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) denies the claims made by writer R Nadeswaran in his recent article “Opinion: A given right to criticise, question the govt” published on Newswav dated June 19.

This is regarding the allegation that MCMC has been used as a “state apparatus” to prevent public discussion on specific issues such as government policies and administration.

In his article, the writer referenced data from TikTok's bi-annual “Government Removal Requests Report”, suggesting that the government and regulatory bodies are intolerant of criticisms. This perception is inaccurate and does not reflect MCMC’s and social media platforms’ operations.

The MCMC wishes to emphasise that its primary duty, as outlined in the Communications and Multimedia Act 1998 (CMA 1998), is to protect internet users and to ensure a safe online environment for all, especially children.

MCMC only submits requests to social media platforms when content is believed to have breached their community standards, the CMA 1998, or the laws. The decisions to remove content are based on social media platforms’ own assessments.

As of June 13, 53 percent of the online content removal requests by MCMC across all platforms were related to online gambling. Additionally, 19 percent involved online scams, 15 percent were identified as fake news, six percent were related to race, religion, and royalty (3Rs), and five percent involved harassment.

These statistics reveal that 72 percent of the content removal requests were related to online gambling and scams, as part of the ongoing efforts to protect the public from harmful and illegal activities.

Safe online environment

Ensuring a safe online environment is a shared goal between MCMC and social media platforms. To this end, social media platforms consistently and proactively remove content that violates their community standards.

For example, public data from one of the social media platforms indicated that the platform itself proactively removed 1.8 million pieces of content in Malaysia in Q4 2023, without any prior request by the authorities, for various violations.

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 criticisms of the government or politicians are allowed, media freedom has legal limitations, particularly on sensitive issues such as race, religion, and royalty.

We invite the public, civil societies, and the media to continue our engagements and collaborations toward creating a safe and secure online environment. - Mkini

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The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of MMKtT.