THE Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission’s (MCMC) requests to social media platforms to remove content largely involve online gambling and scams.

The commission, responding to reports that Malaysia is the world leader in seeking social media content removed, denied it had made such requests to silence government critics.

In a statement today, MCMC said 72% of its requests for the removal of content across all social media platforms involved online gambling and scams.

“As of June 13, 53% of online content removal requests by MCMC across all platforms were related to online gambling.

“Additionally, 19% involved online scams, 15% were identified as fake news, 6% were related to race, religion, and royalty (the 3Rs), and 5% involved harassment,” it said.

It added that the social media platforms themselves sometimes remove content to ensure a safe online environment.

“Social media platforms routinely and consistently perform proactive removal themselves against content that violates their community standards,” it said.

MCMC also said it was wrong to state that it was being used to prevent public discourse on issues relating to the government or its policies.

“This perception is inaccurate and does not reflect the operations of MCMC and social media platforms,” it said.

It was reported last week that Malaysia made 1,862 requests to TikTok for the removal of certain content in the second half of last year. This was more than any other country, with Australia coming second with only 651 removal requests.

TikTok said it received a total of 2,202 requests from Malaysia last year, as opposed to 70 the preceding year.

Similarly, Meta said it had restricted around 8,600 pieces of content in Malaysia the whole of last year, an increase from the 553 content restrictions imposed in 2022.

MCMC also said its requests to online platforms were based on content deemed to have breached community standards or Malaysian laws.

It added that 1.8 million pieces of online content were proactively removed by “one of the social media platforms” in the fourth quarter of last year without any request from the authorities.

“These include content promoting bullying and harassment, privacy violations, hate speech, misinformation, spam, coordinated inauthentic behaviour, misinformation that directly contributes to interference with the functioning of the political process, and certain highly deceptive manipulated media.

“Although criticism of the government or politicians is allowed, there are legal limitations to media freedom, particularly when it comes to sensitive issues such as the 3Rs,” it added. – June 20, 2024.