He said the bill experienced a brief delay due to a request from the Malaysia Productivity Corporation for it to undergo a regulatory impact analysis.

“However, after we clarified to them that a committee had already provided preliminary discussions and feedback to shape the regulations, they agreed for us to proceed.

“I am confident we can present it for first reading in Parliament in the coming weeks,” he told reporters after visiting and providing aid through the Tabung Kasih@Hawana fund to two Tamil-media veterans in conjunction with Deepavali in Batu Caves today.

The minister visited former Tamil Malar journalist R Saraspathy and former Tamil Nesan proofreader S Batemaly at their homes.

Also present were Bernama CEO Nur-ul Afida Kamaludin and Malaysian Tamil Media Organisation president S Muthameez Manan.

Previously, Fahmi said the communications ministry had submitted the draft of the bill to the Attorney-General’s Chambers for a final review.

In another development, Fahmi said the Online Safety Bill, which is also set to be presented in Parliament soon, aims to enable the removal of illegal content.

He said the new legislation outlines the responsibilities of curators in ensuring that non-compliant content is removed from their platforms.

“This means that these social media curators need to be more proactive and emphasise to their platforms that they should not act only based on user complaints or reports,” he said.

Fahmi previously said the bill would be brought to the current parliamentary session, with a second reading expected in early December.

He said the initiative to bring this bill to Parliament was aimed at comprehensively addressing online safety issues, particularly concerning four major types of criminal activities – scams, online gambling, cyberbullying and sexual crimes against children.