PUTRAJAYA: Enforcement authorities will collaborate on ways to take immediate action against cyber crimes committed on social media platforms, says Communications Minister Fahmi Fadzil.
“The Cabinet decided today (July 24) that the police, Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) and the Attorney General’s Chambers scrutinise the issues and take immediate action on how to strengthen and streamline aspects with regard to investigations and prosecution of online and cyber crimes,” he said during a post-Cabinet press conference here on Wednesday (July 24).
He said the move was necessary due to the huge losses suffered due to online scams, including abuse of social media platforms by cyber bullies and paedophiles.
“For example, the problems affecting Facebook are a variety of online scams such as love scams with RM8mil losses and investment scams with almost RM132mil in losses.
“In just the first six months of the year, losses from online scams where criminals used Facebook to cheat Malaysians of their savings were estimated to be between RM8mil and RM132mil,” he said.
Fahmi also lamented that several platform providers were slow in responding with regard to requests from the government to remove certain nefarious contents.
He said that Facebook’s parent company Meta had a very high compliance rate for their platforms.
“The compliance rate for Facebook is 85% while Instagram is 88% and WhatsApp is 79%.
“This means that Meta is among the most compliant to local laws,” he said.
However, Fahmi said that the compliance rate of social media platforms such as TikTok, Telegram and X, formerly Twitter, were still below par.
Tiktok had a compliance rate of 76%, Telegram (63%) and X (25%).
“For example, Telegram doesn’t even do anything or is very slow and sluggish in complying,” he said.
Fahmi added that he will be meeting with social media platform providers during a three-day trip to Singapore from Sunday.
