Can you go to your boss and tell him or her: “Hey Boss, you don’t know how to do your job. Move aside and let me be the boss instead. I will tell you what to do and you just do what I tell you. That way, the job will be done better.”
Theoretically, you might think that you can do that, but practically speaking, there is zero chance that your boss will let you be the boss and resign themselves to taking orders from you. It is practically impossible because a lot of times, being a boss is not just a job, it is an identity as well. As long as a boss wants to see themselves as the boss, they are never going to listen to those that they see as their subordinate telling them what to do, even if their subordinate is right.
It is for this reason that I have previously expressed doubts as to whether communications minister Fahmi Fadzil’s proposal that all social media platforms that have more than 8 million users must apply for a licence from the government before they will be allowed to operate in Malaysia will ever see the light of day.
The reason that Fahmi gave, which is that he and the government of Malaysia are disappointed with the way that these social media companies are combating cases of cybercrimes and cyberbullying, and therefore feels that he and the Madani government needs to step in to do the job better, is basically akin to Fahmi asking a bunch of social media giants like Amazon or Meta or Google – each worth many times the GDP of Malaysia – to listen and be obedient to the Madani government as if the Madani government is their boss.
My doubts are already showing signs that they are coming true, because An Asian industry group that includes Google, Meta and X has called on the Malaysian government to pause a plan that will require social media services to apply for a licence, citing a lack of clarity over the proposed regulations.
In an open letter dated Friday and addressed to Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, the Asia Internet Coalition (AIC) – whose members also include Apple Inc, Amazon and Grab – said the proposed licensing regime was unworkable for the industry and could stifle innovation by placing undue burdens on businesses.
The group said there had been no formal public consultations on the plan, leading to industry uncertainty regarding the scope of obligations to be imposed on social media platforms.
No platform can be expected to register under these conditions, AIC managing director Jeff Paine wrote in the letter posted on the group’s website.
The fact that AIC wrote the letter in an open manner and posted it on their website is already telling us that regardless of how the Madani government or the giant social media platforms are wording it, at the core of the issue is an ego conflict.
Its response is an indication that the social media giants are likely taking umbrage at the Madani government treating them as if they work for the Madani government, when they see themselves as the boss of the bosses.
That is why they have written an open letter in a non-negotiable language, instead of a private letter in a “willing to negotiate” tone, to the Madani government. The purpose is likely to tell the Madani government that what the Madani government wants is not going to happen in the terms that the Madani government wants it to happen, and that if the Madani government wants anything to happen at all, it must discuss the matter with the social media platforms in the proper terms, and the proper terms to discuss the matter with the social media platforms is in the terms that the social media platforms itself will set.
The fact that these social media giants have organised themselves in a bloc called AIC is a sign that these social media giants are willing to go to war with the Madani government if the Madani government is not amenable to its wishes. As a bloc, they are likely going to take a “all for one, one for all” stance. The Madani government might stand a chance if it were to only attempt to compel a smaller social media platform like LinkedIn to do as it wishes, but against all of them as a unit, the chances that the Madani government will be able to get what it wants is slim.
In other words, these social media giants are showing the Madani government “who is the boss.”
By organising as a bloc and writing an open letter in non-negotiable terms, these social media giants through its representative group AIC have basically forced the Madani government to deal with it in either one of two ways.
In the first way, the Madani government can tell the AIC, also in a public manner, that if its members don’t apply for licence like it requires them to, then they will be shut down from operating in Malaysia in 2025, or the year when the licensing requirement will take effect. If the Malaysian government does this, then it probably will have to brace for war with the social media platforms, because I seriously doubt that these trillion-dollar companies are going to bend to the wishes of a middle-income nation like Malaysia, when they are capable of taking the financial losses that we can cause them, but our economy might take a serious hit if they pull out from operating in our country.
In the second way, the Madani government can choose to engage with AIC in a private manner after AIC publicly rebuked it in a public manner, but if it does so, the Madani government would have signalled that it is willing to bend the knees, which in turn will mean that whatever agreement and understanding that comes out of this engagement, will likely be an agreement and understanding that follows the wishes and desires of AIC more than the Madani government.
Let’s see how the cookies will crumble.
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