Youths need more training on how to use social media responsibly, says Yeoh

PETALING JAYA: Youths in Malaysia need to be given proper training on ways to use social media responsibly, says Hannah Yeoh.

The Youth and Sports Minister said youth nowadays don’t have enough exposure to face the new challenges of being on social media where anything they say could be religiously or racially sensitive.

“For example, our athletes may think that their comments were only for a post or for a friend, but they didn’t expect that their comments could go viral.

“I'll bring this into a discussion with Communications and Digital Minister Fahmi Fadzil on how we can create more content on the how-tos of responsible social media usage to help out our youths in this matter,” she said in a press conference after attending the EU-Asean Youth Diplomats Programme held at Universiti Malaya (UM) on Sunday (Feb 19).

On Jan 28, hockey player Hanis Nadiah Onn made a racist remark about the crowd who attended the AR Rahman concert at the National Stadium in Bukit Jalil which led to her suspension from all international competitions.

Later, on Feb 13, Yeoh condemned former national trainee shuttler Bong Guang Yik for making a religious and racist speech in a TikTok video.

She said that sports must be free of any sensitive elements.

On a separate issue, Yeoh hoped that the upcoming Budget 2023 on Feb 24 would present a higher amount than the previous budget of RM1bil, which she said was not a big sum.

“There are so many ways to look at issues that are related to youth and sports, one of it is by trying to reach out to other ministries to see how we can cut out wastages and also duplication in the programmes that we carry throughout the different ministries,” she said.

Yeoh hoped that more funds will be given to the ministry and emphasised how it was crucial for them since there are a lot of games and competitions coming up for the year.

Commenting on the restructuring of TVET which was brought up on Jan 26, Yeoh said that there is already a special committee being chaired by Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamid to discuss and find a proposed solution for the matter.

Earlier Sunday, Yeoh gave a special address to the participants of the EU-Asean Youth Diplomats Programme.

The programme is a student summit simulation that is aimed to expose Malaysian youths to EU-Asean relations and the feel of being in a diplomat's shoes.

The event was held from Feb 17 to 19 at the Asia-Europe Institute in UM and was participated by 45 students from different universities nationwide.