Malaysia has over 20.1m internet users

KUALA LUMPUR: The number of active internet users in the country has now exceeded 20.1 million, with 16.8 million being active on social media, the Dewan Rakyat was told today.
Deputy Communications and Multimedia Minister Datuk Jailani Johari said the figure was obtained based on the country's broadband penetration rate which has reached 72.2%, and demonstrated Malaysians were heading towards a digital lifestyle.
"We can conclude that the people use the Internet for browsing social media sites, watching videos, playing online games, location-based applications, search engines and internet banking," he said when replying to a question from Datuk Aaron Ago Dagang (BN-Kanowit).
Aaron Ago had asked about policies and measures taken by the ministry to monitor and address the abuse of the social media which was becoming more rampant against the government, individuals and politicians in the country.
However, Jailani insisted that not all digital lifestyles had brought negative elements in our culture and society.
Realising the fact that stringent laws do not guarantee total solutions for the abuse of the social media, Jailani said the ministry through the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) has taken proactive measures by encouraging Internet users to practice self-regulation.
"To achieve the objectives, MCMC has taken initiatives to educate consumers about the positive uses of the Internet by focusing on four main issues to enhance public awareness on their responsibilities when using the Internet in this digital era.
"The issues are dissemination of false information; cyber bullying; oversharing habits; Internet financial scam in collaboration with the police and the Association of Banks in Malaysia," he said.
Commenting on the 10 cases involving various offences that were taken to court under the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Act 1998, Jailani said it involved four porn blogs; three offensive emails and one each for fake Facebook account and porn and offensive website.
Besides that he said, 1,263 websites had been blocked for various offences under the existing legal provisions in Malaysia.
He said, from the total, 631 websites were blocked based on applications from the law enforcement agencies, 632 sites for various offences under the same act and only one foreign news site was blocked from January to September. — Bernama