Malaysia has announced it will take legal action against Facebook's parent company, Meta, for failing to remove "unwanted" posts.
Last year's national elections led to increased tensions between ethnic groups. Since Anwar Ibrahim took power in November, the government has promised to curb inflammatory posts about race and religion.
The Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission says that Facebook (FB) has recently been facing a major problem with unwanted content related to topics such as race, religion, defamation, impersonation, online gambling, and ads .
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It also stated that Meta did not take adequate measures despite the committee's repeated requests and that legal action was necessary to protect consumers.
In Malaysia, issues of race and religion are important due to the diversity of the population. About half the population is ethnic Malay, with large minorities of Malaysian Chinese, Malaysian Indians, and indigenous peoples.
Commenting on the country's revered kings is also a sensitive subject, and negative comments can result in penalties.
The legal action against Facebook comes just weeks before regional elections in six Malaysian states, which are expected to pit Anwar's coalition against a conservative Muslim alliance.
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It is worth noting that Facebook is the most used social networking platform in Malaysia. 60% of the population has an account.
Globally, major social media companies such as Facebook's Meta, YouTube 's Google , and TikTok are being scrutinized by regulators for the content published on their platforms.
Some governments in Southeast Asia often request the removal of content.
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In 2020, the Vietnamese government threatened to shut down Facebook in the country if it did not give in to its demands to censor more local political content on its platform . Last year, authorities said social media platforms operating in Vietnam removed more than 3,200 posts and videos in the first quarter of the year that contained false information and violated the country’s laws.
In 2019, in Indonesia, Facebook deleted many local accounts, pages, and groups that were linked to fake news.
Source: edition.cnn.com
