Malaysia has criticised TikTok for failing to enforce its own community standards and warned that legal action could follow if the platform does not step up efforts to tackle harmful content and underage users.
Communications Minister Datuk Fahmi Fadzil said the social media platform operator, one of the first to obtain a licence to operate in Malaysia, has been “weak” and not assertive enough in taking action.
TikTok was summoned to Bukit Aman on Thursday for a meeting with police and the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC), after complaints over the spread of false information, cyberbullying, and children bypassing age restrictions despite TikTok’s ban on users under 13.
Fahmi did not mince his words, stating: “I am very dissatisfied with TikTok’s lack of seriousness.”
He added that the company’s refusal to address issues that had previously been raised could result in legal action, and that he had asked MCMC to examine what steps could be taken.
Fahmi was referring to TikTok’s earlier promise to add more moderators to monitor content, including live streams, following the death of a content creator due to alleged bullying.
“We have been repeatedly asking them to reveal the number of moderators that they have put in place to monitor content during live streams in Tamil, but they failed to do so. This is serious because my deputy and I, including MCMC, have been receiving complaints from the Indian community about the cyberbullying problems that happened on TikTok,” he added.
From Jan 1 to Aug 31, Fahmi said TikTok had removed more than 76,000 posts flagged by regulators but refused to take down over 10,000 others, citing that they did not violate its community guidelines.
He said this showed the platform’s moderation efforts remained inconsistent and inadequate.
Fahmi also said the platform needs a more effective mechanism to address underage users.
“During my visits to schools, especially primary schools, I found that children as young as Standard One pupils (seven years old) had TikTok accounts. This goes against TikTok’s own community guidelines, which state that children under 13 cannot be on the platform. So TikTok must address the issue. The current mechanism is not working,” said Fahmi.
He urged TikTok to introduce age-verification mechanisms, pointing to examples in Singapore, Australia and China, where apps such as Xiaohongshu restrict certain features unless users verify their identity.
Fahmi stressed that the government did not intend to ban TikTok or curtail freedom of expression but would prioritise online safety. He pointed to the Online Safety Act, which takes effect in October, that will compel social media platforms to act against harmful content such as scams, predatory behaviour and deepfakes.
“The government wants to find an equilibrium so people can benefit from technology, but at the same time, we cannot ignore the risks,” he said.
TikTok, which is owned by China’s ByteDance, has faced scrutiny in several countries over content moderation, data privacy and its influence on younger users. In Malaysia, where social media is widely used across age groups, platforms have also been blamed for spreading scams and misinformation, particularly during elections.
Fahmi said similar meetings would be held with Meta, the operator of Facebook and Instagram, and with X, formerly Twitter, as Putrajaya moves to hold tech companies accountable for online harms.
