Platform Providers Must Be More Proactive In Fighting Immorality On Social Media - Fahmi

SUBANG JAYA, Nov 11 (Bernama) -- Social media platform providers need to be more proactive in helping the government combat immoral and illegal activities on social media, said Communications Minister Fahmi Fadzil.

He said that, on numerous occasions, the platform providers have been found to be slow to act and only take down immoral content when complaints are made by relevant parties

For instance, he said a Facebook page related to sexual crimes against children had gone viral on X a few weeks ago.

“The Royal Malaysia Police (PDRM) contacted the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) for technical assistance on the matter, and I have left it to PDRM to take action on this issue.

“I believe Meta (the platform provider) has removed the content, but the problem is Meta was not proactive. They only acted after the issue was raised. In fact, they should have flagged it from the beginning. This is one of the reasons why we want these platforms to be automatically licensed,” he said.

Fahmi said this when met after opening the 8th International Search Conference: Media Evolution - Navigating Sustainability and Disruption in a Dynamic World organised by Taylor's University here today.

The minister said that social media platform providers should be using current artificial intelligence (AI) technology to combat those harmful elements.

“What is the point of having AI? What is the point of them making money from Malaysians - Facebook's revenue in 2023 was RM2.5 billion - yet they can't implement automatic filtering for criminal pages like these?” he chided.

Fahmi also reiterated that the introduction of the class licence for platform providers under the Communications and Multimedia Act 1998 is a necessary step to combat three major crimes that have now migrated to the virtual space, namely online scams and gambling, cyberbullying, and sexual crimes against children.

-- BERNAMA