At a press conference here, Fahmi said more than 800 videos were banned from Nov 12 to Nov 18, during campaigning for GE15, while some 175 videos were taken down on polling day itself on Nov 19.

Meanwhile, over a thousand videos had been banned from Nov 20 to Nov 25.

The minister said the videos had been blocked automatically through TikTok’s artificial intelligence.

On Nov 30, the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) said it had called for TikTok’s management to provide an “immediate explanation” over three videos on its platform which warned of a repeat of the May 13 race riots.

It added that the videos were paid content.

On Nov 21, Inspector-General of Police Acryl Sani Abdullah Sani warned social media users against uploading content that touched on racial and religious sensitivities which could threaten public safety and order.

Fahmi also said it was worrying that more videos were banned post-GE15 than during the election campaign period.

“The number is quite high. There was an uptick, from Nov 20 to Nov 26, of more than 1,000 videos.

“These were blocked automatically by TikTok when there was no Cabinet in place.”

Fahmi said the ministry had started engaging with TikTok first as there were many videos touching on the May 13 incident on the social media platform.

“We have also reached out to Facebook although it is much more regulated compared to TikTok. Maybe this is because it has gone through multiple general elections.

“We are now reaching out to Meta as we would like to have a look at Instagram and WhatsApp,” he said.

Meta is the technology company which owns social networks Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.

We are live on Telegram, subscribe here for breaking news and the latest announcements.