KUALA LUMPUR — The opposition must know the difference between criticism of the government and slander, Communications Minister Fahmi Fadzil during a heated exchange in the Dewan Rakyat with a Perikatan Nasional (PN) lawmaker over accusations the government was suppressing freedom of speech.
Fahmi, who was winding up policy-stage debates on the budget allocation for his ministry under the Supply Bill 2025, raised his voice as Datuk Mas Ermieyati Samsudin (Masjid Tanah-PN) pressed him on internet freedom amidst the government’s attempts to regulate and license social media platforms.
“We accept criticism. Even the prime minister does not stop anyone from criticising him.
“But (the government can’t accept if) the criticisms are based on pure slander, for example, the slanderthat 1.2 million Chinese nationals have obtained (Malaysian) citizenship, which was raised by the opposition MPs.
“These are the most drastic examples of criticism that is in fact, slander. So don’t try to take cover or protect slanderers by labelling them as critics.
“We need to differentiate,” said Fahmi.
Mas Ermieyati had also pressed Fahmi to state the accuracy of reports by social media companies on government removal requests. She said TikTok’s report on this topic had listed Malaysia as top among governments which asked the short-video platform to take down online content from July until December last year.
“Based on these reports, it is proven that this government is becoming more aggressive in violating free speech rights as it ages,” she said.
Responding to this, Fahmi said the vast majority of takedown requests made by the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) to social media companies are on scams and online gambling content.
He said this year alone, MCMC has asked Meta to take down 249,268 content, of which 172, 072 were related to online gambling, and the remaining number involved 56,130 scam.
These two categories comprised 91.6% of content that was requested by the internet regulator to be taken down.
The minister also said that he personally did not make all these takedown rests to MCMC, as “any member of the public” can file such requests with the regulator. – November 27, 2024