KUALA LUMPUR: Parents are reminded not to rely solely on platform providers to ensure their children’s digital safety, but to take a proactive role in monitoring their devices to protect them from cyber threats.
Communications Minister Datuk Seri Fahmi Fadzil said monitoring children’s online activities was now essential to reducing the risks of sexual offences and cyberbullying.
“We need to know what our children are viewing. Giving a child a mobile phone is much like giving them a car; many things can happen if they are not properly supervised,” he said during an appearance on Agenda Daily’s Agenda Malaysia podcast.
Fahmi said the concern was well-founded, citing the recent arrest of 53 individuals under Op Pedo 2 and the seizure of more than 54,000 files linked to online child predation.
To protect children from paedophiles and cyberbullying, he urged parents to use parental control features to limit device usage and block high-risk applications, while discouraging “doomscrolling”, or excessive scrolling through social media content.
Meanwhile, Fahmi said social media platform providers could be fined up to RM10 million for each offence from early next year if they failed to comply with the Online Safety Act 2025.
He said the law was aimed at ensuring platform operators took responsibility for curbing fake accounts, online sexual offences and cyberbullying.
“When we have clear laws in place, platforms that do business and generate revenue from online activities in Malaysia must cooperate. We are giving them time, but I hope it will not come to the point where we have to impose fines,” he said.
On identity verification for social media accounts, Fahmi said every citizen had official documents, such as a MyKid, birth certificate or MyKad, that could be used to verify whether a social media user was aged 16 or above.
He said such verification was crucial amid the growing number of fake social media accounts, which could be exploited by criminals to deceive victims and facilitate fraud and illegal gambling.
“Nearly 90 per cent of the content that the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) has asked platforms to remove is linked to scams and online gambling,” he said.
To curb online scams targeting groups including retirees and civil servants, Fahmi urged victims to contact the National Scam Response Centre (NSRC) at 997 within 15 to 30 minutes of the incident to enable the transaction to be blocked.
“We should treat a call to the NSRC at 997 in the same way as calling an ambulance, as it is an emergency situation. If the call is made within 15 to 30 minutes, insya-Allah, Bank Negara can block the funds from being withdrawn through mule accounts,” he said.