KOTA KINABALU, Feb 20 ― The government is studying new ways to deal with social media posts that threaten to disrupt national security and public order, Communications and Multimedia Minister Gobind Singh Deo said today.

The minister said that his ministry has been looking into the issue over the past year but has yet to reach a decision on how to deal with the problem.

“I think there are laws currently in place to take action if an offence has been committed in this regard.

“Yes, there has been discussions in my ministry on this. We are gathering different opinions and feedback on it, but the problem affects more than just Malaysia. The problem exists in different countries, and this is something we all have to deal with,” he told reporters after a function for the B40 community here.

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He was asked the government’s plans to tackle fake news and provocative social media postings on race and religion.

Gobind said that the current laws are sufficient for police to act against those who abuse the internet to post inflammatory messages that endanger national security and public order.

“Just yesterday  there was a social media trying to link Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng to be responsible for Lembaga Tabung Haji sale of its four hotels. Both you and I know he is not in charge, it comes under Mujahid,” he said, referring to Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department in charge of Islamic affairs, Datuk Seri Mujahid Yusof Rawa.

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“I am told a police report was lodged. We have to be very careful with the use of social media for the purpose of threat as action under the law would be taken,” he said.

“You have seen in Covid-19, action has been taken. We have advised people to check the truth before spreading information.  Nevertheless there are certain quarters who have been found, and action was taken against them, so the laws are sufficient, it is just a question of us moving towards getting the public to cooperate with us,” he said.

Earlier, Gobind witnessed the handing over ceremony of MyFreeView decoders to some B40 and handicapped groups.

He said the government had allocated two million decoders with 1.81 million distributed nationwide so far.

In Sabah, 228,767 decoders, have been allocated with about 170,000 distributed so far.

“Another 51,000 will be distributed soon,” he said.