Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (Commonwealth Union)_In a new development on the plans by Malaysia to take legal action against Facebook parent Meta Platforms, the Malaysian Communications & Multimedia Commissions (MCMC) announced that it won’t be taking legal action against the multi-billion dollar corporation as some ‘positive engagement’ had been made with the company. Last month, the MCMC declared it would be taking legal action against Meta for its failure to act against what it called ‘undesirable content’ related to race, religion, defamation, royalty, online gambling, scam ads and impersonation.
However, with Meta giving a firm commitment to combat disinformation on its platforms and collaborate with Malaysian authorities which includes the MCMC and the police to confront the posts that are deemed harmful, plans of legal action have been dropped. Calling the cooperation very positive, the MCMC said it was considering imposing fines on social media platforms if they failed to tackle the issue.
60 percent of Malaysia’s 33 million population have a registered account with Facebook, making it the country’s biggest social media platform. The MCMC has been criticized for taking down several news sites and social media accounts in the last few weeks, including those which are opposition-linked.
With regional elections slated for next month which will pose Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s government against an ultra-conservative Malay-Muslim alliance, the government is treading a fine line of not intending to curb freedom but becoming stringent on content that touches on race, religion and royalty mainly the sultans who play a ceremonial role. These three Rs are rather thorny issues in Malaysia. The majority of the population comprise Muslim ethnic Malays with diversity brought in by the Chinese and Indian minorities.
