Malaysia’s Communications Minister, Fahmi Fadzil, is making it very clear that the government is fed up with Meta.
The main bone of contention is the tech giant’s inability to deal with a surge of fake accounts impersonating members of the country’s royal families. Despite repeated meetings with the company, the minister says the results have been pretty underwhelming so far.
Between January and April this year, the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) spotted 15,296 fake accounts pretending to be 26 different royals. Fahmi has been quite vocal about his disappointment, pointing out that several warnings have already been issued. He feels Meta is showing a lack of respect for the Malay Rulers, who hold a very significant place in the nation’s constitution and culture.
Because Meta seems to be dragging its feet, the government is looking at taking things to the legal level. They are currently weighing up options under the upcoming Online Safety Act, or ONSA. Once the relevant codes are finalised, platforms that fail to police these fake accounts could face some seriously heavy penalties. We are talking about fines that could hit RM1 million initially, with daily charges of RM100,000, or even reaching RM10 million for the most serious offences.
Beyond the royal impersonations, the ministry is also sounding the alarm over the sheer amount of online gambling and scam content floating around. The stats are pretty staggering, with over 230,000 posts related to scams and gambling taken down by the MCMC in just the first few months of the year.