KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — Communications Minister Fahmi Fadzil has asked all social media and online messaging platforms with at least 8 million users to register as application service providers beginning this year, in an effort to monitor and prevent pornography on such sites.
According to Singaporean newspaper The Star, via the South China Morning Post, Fahmi told Malaysia’s lower house of Parliament that the country’s Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) has removed nearly 2,000 pornographic posts and ads from social media since 2022.
Fahmi said that these tech companies have a duty to block "inappropriate content," noting that a total of 3,670 websites were blocked for displaying such content between January 2022 and Feb. 15, 2025.
As XBIZ has reported, the Malaysian government has cracked down on those who try to skirt the country's obscenity laws, charging one activist with a crime after she uploaded a collage of vulvas on her Twitter account and arresting a male creator — as well as his two girlfriends and their content partners — for the crime of "offering sexual services" by posting and marketing adult videos online.
The government also worked with Elon Musk's X to remove pornographic content from the platform in Malaysia, though it remains available in other parts of the world.
"Social media platforms have a duty of care to avoid putting up inappropriate content and that is why we need to work with them," Fahmi told parliament, the SCMP reported.
Malaysia's parliament recently passed a controversial bill known as the Online Safety Bill 2024, which requires licensed application providers to remove "harmful content," which includes anything the government deems obscene or indecent.
The heart of the controversy lies in the fact that the bill grants law enforcement officials sweeping search and seizure powers that don't require a warrant — and that includes sensitive user data.
However, due to the "8 million users" stipulation, the bill is expected to affect fewer than a dozen companies.
According to Azalina Othman Said, the minister for law and institutional reforms, those companies include Tencent, which operates WeChat; ByteDance, which owns TikTok; and U.S.-based Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.
