KUALA LUMPUR: The public have been urged to free themselves from their rigid mindset of believing in unverified information on social media.
Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) chief regulatory officer Zulkarnain Mohd Yasin said netizens tend to believe information regarding certain issues on social media more than official statements.
“Negative things can be avoided depending on the attitude, mentality and intention of social media users. Social media abuse can be overcome if users are aware of their roles and are determined to make changes,” he told Bernama while appearing as a guest on Bernama Radio discussing a topic entitled ‘Inculcating Prudent Use of Social Media’ on Monday.
Zulkarnain said social media users should be prudent when using the platform and avoid this rigid mindset and falling victims to scams as well as committing offences.
He reminded social media users to avoid leaving comments that can provoke anger and cause fear as it was an offence under Section 233 of the Communications and Multimedia Act (CMA) 1998 that allows authorities to conduct investigations and take appropriate action against any party who disseminates content containing obscene, indecent, false, menacing or offensive elements on social media.
“MCMC in collaboration with the Royal Malaysia Police (PDRM) will not hesitate to take stern action against any individual found to be abusing social media to the extent of breaking the law, causing disorder and harm,” he said.
Zulkifli said the provisions of the law were not meant to restrict freedom of expression but to educate the public to use social media prudently by refraining from uploading negative and sensitive content.
Speaking on fake social media accounts, Zulkarnain said that until last November, action had been taken on 5,329 such accounts, with 80 percent of them having been deleted with the cooperation of social media platform providers, in accordance with the terms and conditions of their respective platforms.
MCMC is working with social media platform providers such as Facebook, Twitter and Google to deactivate fake accounts, he said, adding that these providers used the Artificial Intelligence technology to identify fake accounts on their platforms.
On the dissemination of fake news regarding Covid19, he said until Dec 3, MCMC and PDRM had opened 274 investigation papers, of which 35 cases had been charged in court and 21 were found guilty, while 137 cases were still under investigation.
Zulkarnain said enforcement action was taken under the provisions of Section 233 of the CMA 1998 or Section 505 of the Penal Code.
Meanwhile, regarding the role it played in countering fake news, he said Sebenarnya.my portal had been the source for public reference to check the validity of viralled news since it was launched by the body in March 2017.
The portal has recorded 220 million views since its launch, receiving up to 4.9 million hits every month, he said, adding that 11,955 pieces of unverified information had been channelled to the portal with an average of 268 received each month. – Bernama
