Report offensive, pornographic, incestuous, false content, says MCMC

MCMC says netizens should report abuse on any content that is offensive, incestuous pornographic or false. – The Malaysian Insider file pic, February 26, 2016.The Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) has urged netizens to use the 'report abuse' application on the social media to report content which is offensive, incestuous, pornographic and false.

MCMC Network Security Chief Officer for the Enforcement and Advocacy Sector, Zulkarnain Mohd Yasin said netizens should make use of the 'report abuse' facility or report directly to platform providers such as Facebook and Twitter as reports by individuals were given more priority by the social media administrators.

"If we look at Facebook, there are applications which we can use such as'like', which is commonly used, but not many use the 'report abuse' application.

"Which is why, when we come across an account which is used to bully, shame or threaten security, we should not just click 'like' as this could make us accessory to cyber crimes," he told Bernama.

Zulkarnain said internet users in the country were still not well-versed with the social media and preferred to 'share' to make something go viral, but did not take further action by going to the provider or reporting the matter to the authorities.

"They only 'share' but are not aware of the proper medium, which is to 'share' with the authorities for legal action to be taken."

He said netizens should adopt a critical approach by not instantly believing any content, without first checking the authenticity of the information.

"This is what the MCMC has been stressing upon so that the public are not hampered by their inability to assess the content on the social media," he added.

Meanwhile, Zulkarnain said the MCMC was in the process of improving the capabilities of its workforce and upgrading the efficiency of its technical staff, including its forensics experts, to monitor and investigate cases relating to cyber crimes under Section 233 of the Communications and Multimedia Act 1998.

"This is what we want to inform because there are now about 17 million Facebook accounts in the country, and it is difficult for us to monitor and investigate but if we look at the statistics of investigations in Facebook, since January this year alone, we investigated 16 cases compared to 15 for the whole of 2015," he said.

He said the success of the investigations were due to the development of technical capabilities as well as cooperation between enforcement agencies, including the police, in ensuring the investigations went well and the guilty parties charged in court. – Bernama, February 26, 2016.