Communications Minister Fahmi Fadzil has repeatedly slammed online platforms, including Facebook, TikTok, Telegram and X, for their patchy efforts to control the proliferation of scams, cyberbullying, and paedophilic content on the internet.
But the looming threat of a new cyber law by stealth has alarmed freedom of expression advocates in the country.
Calling it the “death knell for freedom of speech and expression in Malaysia”, human rights lawyer and activist Eric Paulsen criticised the government for pushing these new licensing and cyber laws “with little consultation and in haste”.
“What we have here is painfully little context provided other than several vague, sweeping and unsubstantiated statements by various ministers as to why we require such drastic laws that will surely further impinge freedom of speech and expression,” Paulsen told This Week in Asia.
While its traditional mainstream media has largely been under some form of government control since independence in 1957, Malaysians have enjoyed a broad degree of freedom online. Then prime minister Mahathir Mohamad made a commitment that the country “would never censor the internet” at its advent in the 1990s – a position which has been stuck to over the succeeding years.
However, existing laws, including the Sedition Act and the Communications and Multimedia Act, have been used to police Malaysians online throughout the years.
Communications Minister Fahmi on Friday cited a sharp increase in harmful social media content earlier this year and urged social media firms, including Facebook parent Meta and TikTok, to step up monitoring their platforms.
Currently, the communications regulator can flag content contravening local laws to social media firms, but it is up to the platforms to decide to remove content.
Paulsen said while the government had a legitimate duty to address such online crimes, it also had the duty to protect the space for criticism – including against the government and political elite.
“Look at how the Sedition Act, Communications and Multimedia Act, [and the] Peaceful Assembly Act have been misused in recent years,” he said.
“There is absolutely no reason to think that these new proposed social media legislation will also not be misused.”
Across Malaysia’s lively online sphere, news of the new law raises the fear that the government will mandate users to tie their online presence to their national identity cards, making anonymity impossible.
X user Ng Chee Mun said even if the current government did not abuse the new law, it was still open for abuse by subsequent administrations.
“If restrictions are not written into law, it will be used any way the government [sees] fit, [either by] this government, or any subsequent ones,” Ng said.
Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi on Sunday said people who did not violate ethics and used responsible social media accounts should not be afraid.
“What is there to be afraid of if social media is used to express the truth using authentic identities?” Ahmad Zahid asked. “[This is] so that every netizen is responsible for what he writes.”
He said Malaysia’s new regulations were not unique, citing countries like China, which had its own “mechanism of control”.
Member of Parliament and legal activist Syahredzan Johan said while there was “a potential for abuse”, the new law was necessary as social media companies lacked responsibility to curb such offending content from their platforms, and enforcement officers were always playing catch-up.
“It is also the least intrusive and burdensome regime for end users. You can still maintain your anonymity if you wish to do so,” Syahredzan said on X.
He added that he “will not hesitate” to speak out against the law if it is used to silence legitimate dissent.
Media scholar Benjamin Loh at Taylor’s University Malaysia said Syahredzan’s assurance to go after the minister was not a substitute for legitimate safeguards.
“[You should go after the minister], but you have the opportunity to fix it now before it starts, so why wait to voice out your concerns?” Loh questioned the lawmaker.
With two more days before the introduction of the framework, he said the opaqueness over its details was “very frustrating and obviously intentional to avoid proper scrutiny”.
