KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 13 — Inspector-General of Police (IGP) Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar gave his assurance today that any bid by enforcers to monitor and punish those who abuse social media will be done within the ambit of the law.

The national police chief refused, however, to divulge further details on how enforcers plan to tighten control over information spread on online platforms, merely saying that “we have our ways”.

“No need for me to say how, we have our ways..I have already said yesterday that if we let people abuse the social media, it can threaten the harmonious relationship shared by all races as well as religious sensitivities,” he said.

“We will use anything within the law to prevent social media abuse..whatever that will be done will be within the law,” he added.

Khalid said yesterday that the police have no choice but to beef up efforts to monitor social media as many Internet users in the country have been abusing the platform by issuing insensitive comments.

According to the IGP, some Malaysians even tend to be “overzealous” when using sites like Facebook, often causing public disruption.

Asked if scrutiny would extend to WhatsApp, a popular text application on smartphones, Khalid said it would not cover “all personal WhatsApp”.

“I said we will monitor any social media abuse which will threaten national security, but we will do it according to the law,” he added.

Yesterday, the national police chief said social media monitoring would include use of WhatsApp.

A local non-government organisation, Empower, however has criticised policing of social media networks, pointing out that some applications like WhatsApp is a private communication tool and not meant for public dissemination.

Empower compared monitoring of private messages to the government spying on private conversations among citizens, which it said was a violation of their right to expression and privacy.