Malaysian government has announced readiness to take legal action against Facebook’s parent company, Meta for failing to remove “undesirable” posts from social media platform.
The authority said Meta company failed to take sufficient action despite repeated requests.
The MCMC also said that the company has not fully cooperated with efforts to remove such content and that Meta’s response has been sluggish and unsatisfactory.
We’re left with no option, says Malaysia
According to the authorities, Meta has not met the urgency of the matter and it is due to the increasing public concern and scrutiny that MCMC has “no option but to take definitive steps or legal action against Meta.”
The country is calling this “a measure to ensure that people are secure and protected in the digital sphere.” It said that the action was necessary to promote accountability for cybersecurity and enhance consumer protection against online harms, including fraudulent activities and scams.
According to a report by news agency Reuters, Facebook is Malaysia’s biggest social media platform with an estimated 60% of its population having an account.
It is noteworthy that big social media firms such as Meta, Google-owned YouTube and TikTok have often been under regulatory scrutiny in multiple countries and regions.
In 2020, Vietnam threatened to shut down Facebook in the country if it failed to censor more local political content on its platform.
In line with the above, Nigeria should not be an-everything goes nation in terms of social media consumption, where anything, even against our culture and originality can be dumped here, and thus exposing our people to global ill-mannerism.