Malaysia’s ban requests for posts and accounts on Meta, TikTok jump six times in 2023،
A record number of restricted content on TikTok and Meta platforms in Malaysia for 2023 – all at the request of the government.
The report of Reuters highlights that in the first six months of 2023, official requests from the Malaysian government to remove social media posts and accounts increased. This is seen as ironic by some, given that Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim's administration came to power in November 2022 on a reformist agenda and promises to protect freedom of expression.
The government has so far denied allegations of wrongdoing, instead saying its measures were aimed at curbing provocative posts touching on race, religion and royalty.
In the first six months of 2023, Meta restricted around 3,100 pages and posts on Facebook and Instagram from Malaysian users – they allegedly violated local laws, according to data published in the company's biannual transparency report.
Compared to the previous six months, the January-June 2023 figure is six times higher and the highest since the company began reporting content restrictions in Malaysia in 2017.
ByteDance's TikTok released a similar report and said it received 340 requests from the Malaysian government to remove or restrict content between January and June 2023, affecting 890 posts and accounts. TikTok removed or restricted 815 of them for violating local laws or the platform's community guidelines. Again, this is the highest figure since the company began reporting requests from Malaysia in 2019, the data shows.
The total number of restrictions on TikTok in the first six months of 2023 was triple that of the second half of 2022. Malaysia has made more requests to restrict content on TikTok than any other government in Southeast Asia, according to the data.
