Lawyers for Liberty (LFL) refers to the statement by Deputy PM Zahid Hamidi where he said the government will shut down “unlicensed” social media platforms and internet messaging services on 1 January 2025.
His statement was in relation to the coming introduction of a regulatory framework by the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC), which will be introduced on 1 August and implemented by January.
Licensing of social media platforms is unnecessary and high-handed. It poses a serious danger to our democratic right to criticise or question the government.
This government already has a track record of forcing the removal of critical political content by making requests to social media operators.
In justifying licensing, Deputy Communications Minister Teo Nie Ching claimed that similar legislation exists in other countries such as Singapore and the UK.
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This is a blatantly false comparison. Those countries do not impose licensing upon social media providers. Instead, they have created a regulatory framework to deal with online safety.
In short, it is acceptable to impose regulations but not to threaten social media providers with a licensing scheme which gives power to the government to shut them down, as Zahid stated.
The licensing scheme is similar to the concept behind the notorious Printing Presses and Publication Act 1984 (PPPA), which has been used for decades to control the print media, including by shutting down newspapers.
This draconian law continues to be in force under the Pakatan Harapan-led government despite its previous promises to repeal the PPPA.
Social media is a democratic tool that has been wielded by ordinary people to expose untruths and mobilise collective action. It has been instrumental to ensure that the state or even the international news media would be unable to suppress unsavoury or unfavourable news from reaching the ears of the public.
The most recent example is of course how social media was able to cause massive waves of support for the Palestinian cause, made possible due to the ability of individuals from within Palestine to share and disseminate news through these platforms about the horrors they had suffered.
Any abuse of social media platforms, such as cyber-bullying, scams or other crimes, can be tackled by comprehensive regulations.
Assurances from the government that this move is to address cyber-bullying or other cybercrimes can give us little comfort.
There are multiple recent examples to show that the government has been undemocratically trying to quell the voices of dissenters or critics online through takedown requests to social media providers.
The planned move to impose licences on these providers would be a surefire way for the government to force these providers to comply with such requests.
It is also common knowledge that the current government has consistently branded criticisms against it or any of its members as crimes.
As recently as several weeks ago, Section 233(1)(a) of the Communications and Multimedia Act 1998 was used against members of the public under the guise of curbing the “widespread phenomenon of cyber-bullying in society” for making criticisms of parliamentary sessions.
This is a government which is increasingly intolerant of criticism. It surely cannot be given the power to licence social media platforms.
LFL thus calls on the government to withdraw the intended licensing scheme.
Instead, a regulatory scheme must be discussed with all stakeholders. The right to political dissent and criticism must be protected. It should also not be implemented before relevant stakeholders are able to scrutinise the full extent of the objective of the regulations and the powers it will confer to the government regarding its enforcement. – LFL
Zaid Malek is the director of Lawyers for Liberty.
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