MCMC urged to beef up surveillance on social media

Sarawak National Youth Organisation (Saberkas) wants the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) to enhance their surveillance on social media to weed out contents that are against the social norms in the country.

Its president, Datuk Amar Abang Johari Tun Openg today said there must be some ways and means for the commission to filter the contents in the social media, such as Facebook, which he noted had been flooded with contents that were socially unacceptable in Malaysia.

"These (unacceptable contents) are easily accessible to anybody who have smartphones and that would have a bad impact to youth development," he told a press conference after chairing the Saberkas supreme committee meeting here.

He said that MCMC could look into the methods adopted by some other countries in curtailing the social media contents.

"For us as a developing country, we cannot be too free in terms of this sort of information. Otherwise it will be a problem," he said.

Abang Johari, who is also State Housing and Tourism Minister, said social media were among the issues discussed in the meeting wherey Saberkas secretary-general, Dr Abdul Rahman Junaidi was entrusted to write in to MCMC to express the organisation's stand.

He said the meeting also resolved to form a Saberkas humanitarian mission team which would be dedicated towards helping victims of natural calamities in the state.