The Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission has taken action against close to 1500 fake social media accounts this year. Communications and Multimedia Minister Dr Salleh Said Keruak said that these account were reported for negative online behaviour; such as spreading fake news and information.
“The false information includes political issues and about politicians in this country,” he told reporters. Most of the fake accounts were on popular social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
Salleh advises the public to report social media accounts that they suspect of spreading fake news.
The Communications and Multimedia ministry is also still looking into the possibility of getting online media to register with the government. This would be for the purpose of monitoring the publications for the spread of fake news. Discussions on the matter have been going on for two years now, and it doesn’t look like the government is going to alter the status quo yet.
Fake news has been a problem for the MCMC over the last couple of years. The commission has been doing its best to combat the problem by shutting down blogs and making official reports to social media sites (based on reports from the public). It has also gone as far as to set up its own debunking site; similar to that of Snopes.com.
[Source: The Star]
