Licensing social media: PH government's latest attempt to shut down criticism

We refer to the statement by Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahidi Hamidi where he said that the government will shut down “unlicensed” social media platforms and internet messaging services on Jan 1, 2025.

His statement was in relation to the coming introduction of a regulatory framework by the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) that will be introduced on August 1, and implemented by January 2025.

Licensing of social media platforms is unnecessary, high-handed and poses a serious danger to our democratic right to criticise or question the government. 

It should be remembered that this government already has a track record of forcing the removal of critical political content by making requests to social media operators.

False comparison

In justifying licensing, Deputy Minister Teo Nie Ching claimed that similar legislation exists in other countries such as Singapore and UK. 

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 government to shut them down as stated by Zahid.

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 PPPA.

The power to expose lies

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 on the support of the Palestinian cause, made possible due to the ability of individuals from within Palestine to share and disseminate news of the horrors they suffered through these platforms.

Any abuse of social media platforms such as cyberbullying, scams or other crimes can be tackled by comprehensive regulations.

Assurances from the government that this move is to address cyberbullying or other cybercrimes can give us little comfort.

There are multiple recent examples to show 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 of imposing licenses upon 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 cyberbullying 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 license social media platforms. 

We thus call 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.

Zaid Malek is director of Lawyers for Liberty.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the position of MalaysiaNow.