The government will review the eight million user threshold for social media licensing after AI misuse on platform X, says minister Fahmi Fadzil
KUALA LUMPUR: The government will review the licensing conditions for social media, specifically the eight million user threshold, following concerns that online harm can occur even on platforms with a smaller user base.
Communications Minister Fahmi Fadzil cited the recent misuse of the Grok AI function on platform X as an example.
He said platform X is currently exempt from licensing because the company informed authorities it does not have eight million users in Malaysia.
Fahmi described the case involving the application as hybrid in nature, as X is a social media platform while Grok is an AI application.
“Given that a fairly large incident like this has occurred, we will reassess the threshold value of eight million users because online harm does not necessarily not occur even if the number of users is less than that threshold… so we are giving consideration to this matter,” he said during the Minister’s Question Time in the Dewan Rakyat.
He stated this is a rather hybrid space and requires the ministry, particularly MCMC, to examine it to ensure that from a regulatory aspect, online harm issues can be addressed more comprehensively.
