The Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission’s online harms and information security committee chairman, Derek Fernandez, said lawsuits such as those faced by social media platform X in the European Union and TikTok in the US highlight the need for online platforms to be proactive in ensuring user safety.
“I believe these platforms are starting to realise that users are not products but human beings, and they (the platforms) are trying their best to protect them (users),” he said at a roundtable discussion with BlackBerry officials in Cyberjaya today.
Fernandez said security must be at the core of technology, and argued that enhanced security measures will only improve innovation.
“Many platforms think security stifles innovation, but I disagree with that. The whole basis of having technology and digitalisation is to improve safety and economic welfare” he said.
He also said high-profit social media and communication platforms should disclose how much revenue they allocate for security, calling it contradictory for them to claim that enhanced security measures are too costly.
“These platforms report record profits every year, but how much of their revenue do they set aside for security? Let’s be transparent about it,” he said
Last year, MCMC required all social media and messaging platforms with at least eight million registered users in Malaysia to obtain an Application Service Provider class license starting Jan 1, 2025 to enhance online safety.
Earlier this year, communications minister Fahmi Fadzil announced that WeChat and TikTok had successfully obtained licenses to operate in Malaysia, while social media giant Meta was in the final stages of securing its licence.
Fahmi said other platform providers such as Google and X were undergoing evaluation of their compliance status.
He said while Google has argued it is not a social media platform, the ministry maintains that certain parts of its YouTube platform, such as YouTube Shorts, function like social media, similar to TikTok.
Malaysia’s cybersecurity ranking a double-edged sword
Malaysia was ranked in Tier 1 in the latest Global Cybersecurity Index released last September, placing the nation among the top-performing countries globally in terms of cyber resilience. and reflecting a strong commitment to cybersecurity.
However, BlackBerry’s regional senior director of strategic technical solutions, Jonathan Jackson, said Malaysia’s Tier 1 cybersecurity ranking is a double-edged sword as criminals tend to try harder to break into better cyber infrastructure because they stand to gain more from it.
“The ranking is good because it shows that Malaysia — as a country and as a government — has taken proactive steps to be able to improve the cyber resilience of the country.
“But it’s also bad because it paints a target on your back (as) cyber criminals will go where the money is,” he said.
Jackson said the government’s efforts to minimise the target are commendable, but it also highlights the crucial need for stricter and more comprehensive regulations.