KOTA KINABALU, Feb 26 — Claiming a surge in fake news and hate speech, Sabah’s Liberal Democratic Party wants the government to enact legislation to regulate online content similar to existing laws for mainstream media.

President Datuk Seri Teo Chee Kang said that Malaysia should follow in the footsteps of countries such as Germany and the Czech Republic which have created laws with heavy penalties against hate speech on social media.

"Just as we regulate the conventional media, I think we should also have laws regulating the digital media as well.

"We need to be very careful in addressing the issue of race and religion, hate speech, even cyber bullying, things like that have to be regulated so as not to have people be victimised,” he said during a Chinese new year media gathering here today.

He was referring to the spread of news on blogs and social media, which did not fall under any registered media organisation and was not accountable for spreading lies and fake news at the expense of others.

He said that developed countries like Germany has recognised the effect of such crimes and recently enacted a social media hate crime law or The Network Enforcement Act, which requires large social media platforms to quickly remove alleged illegal content or face big fines of up to 50 million euros.

Teo who is also Sabah special tasks minister said that in Malaysia, freedom of speech in the country fell under defamation and sedition laws but in an era of digital technology, much news still goes unverified and unregulated.

"As much as we like freedom of speech in the digital, traditional and social media, there is a need to ensure it is not abused. Freedom of speech should not be an absolute freedom, and there should be limits to prevent it from being abused.

"As a multi-racial country, it’s very important to preserve the peace and harmony that we have,” he said.