As a father of two, I am aware that young people today are exposed to a dazzling array of information and content on the internet.
However, I can't stress enough how important it is that parents take responsibility for what their children are accessing.
While the internet is a gateway to the world, it can also give malevolent cyber-intruders a direct line to your children.
That's why I spoke out recently against educators using students, especially pupils in primary schools, for social media content. Reason being that such content could be misused by ill-intentioned individuals, including for child sexual crimes.
Issues related to safety, personal data and so on may arise if teachers expose their students’ faces or names on their social media and this could make children victims of sexual crimes, child grooming or sexual grooming.
I do not wish to be a killjoy or an alarmist, and I know children will try to find ways to circumvent parental control.
At the same time, I have banned my children from using TikTok and we need to take a proactive attitude.
Parents and guardians need to act as gatekeepers and monitor their children’s online activities.
We need to be aware of the various online risks that can endanger the safety of children and also explore alternative content and platforms that are safer than social media.
What is the point of an affordable, fast and widespread internet if it is not used safely?
The job has been to make the internet faster and cheaper but we don’t want scammers and criminals to take advantage of it.
That’s why we have the Safe Internet campaign.
Let's not forget how widespread the dangers are.
Suspected online predators and those in possession of Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM) were nabbed in a vast swoop on Dec 23 last year, codenamed Ops Pedo Bersepadu.
The Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) and PDRM (Royal Malaysia Police) made coordinated raids in which 13 suspects were detained in connection with possessing CSAM. A total of 18 premises across six states were raided, and devices belonging to 13 individuals were seized. The raiding teams also seized 40,000 CSAM material.
Online safety also extends to scammers, and last year Malaysians lost RM1.5bil to scammers. Most recently, we have seen trends where scammers trick you by asking you to click on a link and hijack your accounts.
Without sounding paternalistic, we have to think about the internet like our cars. The object is to get from point A to point B safely without falling victim to dangerous detours.
No person, or country for that matter is left unaffected. The criminals cooperate and collude to infiltrate, pilfer and exploit. Oftentimes a cybercrime takes place not even in our own countries but in neighbouring countries. The amount of money that is stolen is huge and we don’t know where the money goes. Whether it will finance an armed resurrection or used to destabilise a society or region.
Through memes and viral videos, a new information age is taking shape, which has also led conspiracy theorists to enjoy a field day.
How to maintain the national narrative in the age of disinformation? We should think about disinformation like we think about vaccination against virus. Fighting misinformation is not a glamorous task. People love rumours and incendiary fake news and the truth is boring.
Indeed, I strongly recommend a book by social psychologist Sander Van Der Linden called Foolproof: Why We Fall for Misinformation and How to Build Immunity.
In the book, Van Der Linden makes the case for an epidemiological approach to studying and countering the spread of misinformation, comparing it to how a virus spreads in the population.
Be cautious, be sceptical, always verify. Assess the veracity of the information you are consuming. The internet and the ever evolving artificial intelligence (AI) technology is so ubiquitous that you need to protect yourself.
And above all, protect the children.
Fahmi Fadzil
Communications Minister
