KUALA LUMPUR, May 28 — Malaysia does advocate a free and open internet, but it must be within the limits of the laws, Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad said today.
In his address at the opening of Facebook’s newly expanded office here, Dr Mahathir acknowledged that social media and the internet carries huge potential and offers socio-economic benefits.
However, he urged internet users to employ a level of civility and responsibility online, and urged platforms such as Facebook to collaborate with Putrajaya to regulate social media.
“While Malaysia advocates for a free and open internet, this has to be within the ambit of our laws, and cannot be unfettered. The rule of the thumb is simple — what is illegal offline is almost always illegal online,” said Dr Mahathir.
“Freedom of speech is not a license to abuse, it is a responsibility. Freedom of speech without any concern for good human behaviour would be a disaster for any society.
“In enforcing our laws to protect the public, all stakeholders need to work together to overcome technical challenges as well as address the need for greater information sharing towards the disclosure or discovery of information to facilitate law enforcement agencies to carry out their duties effectively,” he added.
“Towards this end, I would like to urge Facebook, and other platform providers, to continue to collaborate with the Malaysian government and law enforcement agencies in order to ensure the social media realm remains as a platform that generates positive change rather than the negative ones.”
Unlike in the real world, where social etiquette and manners can sometimes seem restrictive and limiting, people feel they have a greater sense of freedom of expression and attitude when using online networks, Dr Mahathir said.
“This has arguably led to a rise in expressions, feelings, ideas and even worse — cybercrimes.
“The report on social media cybercrimes released earlier this year indicated that cyber criminals using means such as crypto jacking and botnets earn nearly US$3.25 billion (RM13.61 billion) annually through social platforms. This could be very alarming to Malaysia as we are considered quite vulnerable and green in dealing with malware and malicious software,’’ he said
Speaking at the event also was Communications and Multimedia Minister Gobind Singh Deo, who stated that his ministry looks forward to working with Facebook, particularly in the area of Community Standards Enforcement.
“While there is some form of recognition of the need to urgently deal with hate speech, there are also other forms of expressions which may pose threats to our nation’s stability, harmony and national security.
“We recognise that social media providers have done a lot of work on user-generated content (UGC) to counter child pornography, terrorism and hate speech. The challenge now is to address the diversity in UGC content that would include local contexts for each country which has its own areas of concern,’’ he said.
Along with the caution on being civil online, Dr Mahathir also urged local entrepreneurs to utilise social media platforms to drive businesses.
“For SMEs (small and medium enterprises), it can be exciting to have thousands of ‘friends’ on Facebook driving lots of extra traffic to your website or retail locations.
“It is interesting to note that in 2016, some 18 million Malaysians were active on Facebook monthly. That translates to about 81 per cent of Malaysians on the Internet. Amazingly, 94 per cent of Malaysians discover products and brands on Facebook and significantly 62 per cent make a purchase after discovery. As of March 2019, the numbers have increased to 26 million Malaysians that were active on Facebook,’’ he said.
