Communications and Digital Ministry to review existing laws, to ensure social media platforms more responsive - Fahmi Fadzil

PUTRAJAYA: The Communications and Digital Ministry has begun the process to review existing laws to ensure social media platform providers comply with the law and are more responsive to the authorities, says its minister Fahmi Fadzil.

"I have asked the secretary-general (Datuk Seri Mohammad Mentek) and the ministry officials to examine the existing law and assess what steps we need to take to ensure not only closer cooperation, but also that the law is stricter, and we want to see a reduction to the amount of provocative material, especially with regard to the 3R (Royalty, Race, Religion)," he said in a press conference here today.

Fahmi said findings from the social media platform TikTok showed that 2,113 provocative and extremist videos were automatically deleted during the 15th General Election (GE15) from Nov 12 to 26.

"Out of that number, 857 videos were deleted before polling day from Nov 12 to 18, while 130 recordings were curbed on polling day, namely Nov 19, and as many as 1,126 videos post-election from Nov 20 to 26.

"The automatic (content) moderation is based on the artificial intelligence system that TikTok has," he said.

At the same time, Fahmi said the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) had submitted a total of 202 complaints to TikTok to take down videos from Jan 1 to Dec 5, and of those, a total of 95 were taken down for violating community guidelines, 28 videos for violating the national law and 79 videos were not subject to any action.

He said TikTok also blocked more than 1,000 videos that were found to be provocative and extreme during GE15 after receiving complaints from MCMC and several other bodies and agencies.

Meanwhile, Fahmi said the special team established to deal with fake news on Dec 1 would emphasise the communication aspect, especially on how to deal with fake news.

He said the team would also monitor the transmission of fake news that is seen to have a negative impact on the economy, socio-culture, religion and security, apart from affecting public order.

"From the observation, the period between the moment the Prime Minister took his oath and the formation of the Cabinet was the most critical, there was a lot of fake news being spread at that time. The existence of this Task Force will help to curb the spread of fake news more proactively," he said.

-- BERNAMA