Kuala lumpur: The Ministry of Communications, through the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC), has made it mandatory for licensed service providers to take timely action against harmful online content, including blocking access to high-priority content within 24 hours.
According to BERNAMA News Agency, the measure, enforced through the Online Safety (Period) Regulations 2025 under the Online Safety Act 2025 (Act 866), aims to curb the spread of fake news, disinformation, and misinformation at an early stage. The ministry emphasized that for high-priority content, such as financial fraud, the content must be made inaccessible within 24 hours to enable assessment, verification, and further action to be taken. This statement was made in a written reply in the Dewan Rakyat in response to a query from Rodziah Ismail (PH-Ampang) on mechanisms for controlling the spread of fake news, particularly before it becomes widely disseminated.
The ministry reported that from January 1, 2022, to May 31, 2026, MCMC submitted 63,215 requests to service providers to remove false content, with 54,626 pieces of content, or 86 percent, successfully taken down. Additionally, MCMC has been leveraging artificial intelligence technology with the launch of the Artificial Intelligence Fact-check Assistant (AIFA) Chatbot on January 28, 2025. The chatbot helps the public verify information more swiftly and efficiently. As of May 31, AIFA, which supports the Sebenarnya.my portal, had processed 197,403 messages, averaging 404 messages per day, and published 1,016 fact-check articles from January 1, 2022, to May 31, 2026.
To further enhance digital literacy and preventive measures, the Safe Internet Campaign has been rolled out in schools and institutions of higher learning and through 1,938 public programmes involving 2,136,941 participants nationwide as of June 15. The ministry noted that by combining law enforcement, strategic collaboration with platform providers, technology utilization, and digital literacy empowerment, the government remains committed to combating the spread of fake news, disinformation, and misinformation effectively to protect the security and well-being of the country's digital ecosystem.