Malaysia’s MCMC removes 12,353 deepfake posts since January, with 94% of flagged content taken down from social media platforms.
KUALA LUMPUR: The Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) submitted 13,122 requests to social media platform providers to remove content involving image manipulation or “deepfake” technology between Jan 1 and June 30 this year.
The Ministry of Communications, in a written parliamentary reply published on Parliament’s website today, said 12,353 posts, or 94% of the total, had been successfully removed by licensed service providers.
“Between Jan 1, 2022 and June 30 this year, MCMC also requested the removal of 275,787 scam-related content, including fake accounts and impersonation, with 262,293 posts, or 95%, successfully taken down,” the reply said.
The response was to a question from Senator Musoddak Ahmad on the government’s monitoring and enforcement mechanisms to address the misuse of artificial intelligence (AI) for scams, deepfakes and identity fraud.
The ministry said the Risk Mitigation Code, which came into force on June 1, requires licensed platform providers to label content generated or altered using AI, including deepfakes and manipulated images and audio.
In addition, five requests to remove content involving financial scams were submitted under the Online Safety Act 2025 between January and June this year, and all of the content was removed.
In a separate written reply to Senator Baharuddin Ahmad on measures to combat fake news, the ministry said MCMC had investigated 574 cases involving false online content under Section 233 of the Communications and Multimedia Act 1998 between January 2022 and June this year.
“Of the total, 23 cases have been prosecuted in court, with 12 concluded and the remaining 11 still undergoing trial,” the ministry said.
For the concluded cases, the courts imposed total fines amounting to RM79,000, while one offender was sentenced to six months’ imprisonment after failing to pay the fine.
As of June 30, a total of 31 cases had been offered compounds amounting to RM1.22 million, 84 warning letters had been issued, and 47 cases remained under investigation, while the rest were classified as requiring no further action (NFA).
On the HarakahDaily Facebook account, MCMC said no First Information Report (FIR) had been received as of June 30 but firm action would be taken if any content was found to have breached the law or the platform’s guidelines.
