PETALING JAYA: Recent statistics from the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) reveal that over the past three years, cyberbullying has slightly surpassed online scams, with 9,483 reports of cyberbullying compared to 9,321 complaints about online scams.
According to Scoop, cyberbullying peaked at 4,128 cases in 2022 before declining to 3,737 in 2023. Conversely, online scam reports rose from 2,675 in 2022 to 4,180 in 2023.
As of this year, there have been 2,466 reports of online scams, compared to 1,618 instances of cyberbullying.
Additionally, since 2022, the MCMC has logged 143 reports of child sexual content online, with 51 cases in 2022, 75 in 2023 and 17 for 2024 as of July.
Communications Minister Fahmi Fadzil had previously said that online misconduct, scams, and the sexual grooming of children must not continue.
He had pointed out social media platforms with a compliance rate below 79% are considered to have inadequately addressed issues related to online crimes.
Meta’s Instagram had the highest compliance rate at 88%, followed by Facebook at 85% and WhatsApp at 79%. TikTok, Telegram, and X had lower compliance rates of 76%, 65%, and 25%, respectively.
The commission has also issued a letter of instruction to multiple social media platforms to gather pertinent feedback.
However,despite Facebook’s high compliance rate, the platform still sees significant financial losses due to scams, amounting to hundreds of millions of ringgit.
As of July 22, the commission has already sent nearly 100,000 complaints to Facebook and Meta requesting the removal of fraudulent content.
In response to these issues, Fahmi also said the Cabinet has decided to strengthen investigation and prosecution procedures for online crimes.
“Police, the Attorney-General’s Chambers and MCMC will take immediate action to streamline and strengthen investigation and prosecution procedures for online crimes,“ Fahmi said.
