POLICE, AGC, MCMC TO COORDINATE INVESTIGATION, PROSECUTION IN CYBERCRIME CASES - FAHMI

KUALA LUMPUR, July 24 (Bernama) -- The Royal Malaysia Police (PDRM), Attorney-General Chambers (AGC) and the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) will take prompt action to strengthen and coordinate all aspects of investigation and prosecution in cases of cybercrimes.

Communications Minister Fahmi Fadzil said this was among the matters finalised at the Cabinet meeting in Putrajaya today.

“Cybercrimes, such as online scams, cyberbullying and sexual grooming, will leave a deep impact (on the victims) either on their mental health or other aspects of life. This is among the reasons why we made this decision,” he told a press conference after the meeting.

Fahmi said issues of online misconduct, scams and sexual grooming of children in the country cannot be allowed to persist and, for that, the MCMC has issued a letter of instruction to a number of social media platforms to get related feedback.

He said MCMC's monitoring also found that each of those platforms has a different level of compliance with Malaysian laws with some being prompt and complying, some not complying at all, and some very late at responding to the authorities.

Fahmi said Instagram, for one, recorded a compliance rate of 88 per cent, followed by Facebook (85 per cent), WhatsApp (79 per cent), TikTok (76 per cent), Telegram (65 per cent) and X with the lowest compliance rate at 25 per cent.

“Each of these platforms also has cybercrime issues and harmful content,” he said.

Fahmi explained that among the harmful and fraudulent content found on Facebook are online gambling and harmful artificial intelligence (AI), TikTok (cyberbullying, fake accounts, 3R (religion, royalty and race), Telegram (3R, online gambling, pirated movies, child pornography) and X (3R, cyberbullying and sexual grooming of children).

Fahmi, who is the spokesperson for the Unity Government, also revealed that for the first half of 2024, Facebook alone recorded between RM8 million and RM132 million in losses due to online scams.

“That shows that the major problem with Facebook is that the platform continues to be misused by cybercriminals to prey on people and steal their money,” he said.

He explained that one of MCMC's functions is to monitor content that violates Malaysian law and contact the social media platform operators to take down the content, but the final decision rests with the operators whether to take down the content from their platforms or not.

“We refer to our laws, but the operators refer to their community guidelines. So in that context, there is a difference of opinion,” he said.

Meanwhile, Fahmi confirmed his three-day visit to Singapore starting this Sunday, saying that he will meet with social media platform operators and state the government's stance regarding online content.

Fahmi said there are a number of issues that have arisen and that he would ask the social media platform operators to commit to the problems currently affecting the users, especially cybercrimes.

“On Facebook, for example, hundreds of millions of ringgit can be stolen through scams, so even though Facebook’s compliance rate is high, the number of scam cases is also big. This year alone, as of July 22, almost 100,000 complaints were sent by MCMC to Facebook and to Meta to take down fraud content.

“We think that Meta needs to take more proactive action using AI to thwart the efforts of certain parties who abuse its platforms, especially for scam purposes,” he said.

On the issue of donations and sponsorship by liquor companies to a Chinese school, Fahmi said Education Minister Fadhlina Sidek would address it.

“The issue was discussed (at the Cabinet meeting) and a decision was also made. The Education Minister will make a statement on this later,” he said.

It was reported that the school in Sepang, Selangor, had recently organised a charity concert, with the liquor company being one of the donors.

-- BERNAMA