Grab responds to AIC's open letter to Malaysia on pausing its social media licensing plan

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A few weeks back, the Malaysian government made a drastic announcement that all social media and internet messaging services must apply for a license on 1 August 2024. We are getting to the end of the month and we still haven't heard any development yet until the Asia Internet Coalition (AIC) responded yesterday.

The AIC is an Asian industry group that includes Google, Meta, Grab, Apple, Twitter X, Amazon and many others. The organization released an open letter to pause the licensing requirement due to the lack of proposed regulation clarity. The open letter was posted on AIC's website but it has been removed.

Besides the lack of proposed regulations, AIC also mentioned that the licensing regime was “unworkable” for the industry. Applying for the license could disrupt Malaysia's digital economy and discourage foreign investments. There were also no formal public consultations on the plan by the Malaysian government. In AIC Managing Director Jeff Paine's own words - “No platform can be expected to register under these conditions".

In addition, Grab also gave a response to AIC's open letter just a few hours ago. In its official statement, it reads:

"Grab was not informed nor consulted on the recent open letter to the Malaysian Prime Minister, Dato’ Sri Anwar Ibrahim, that was made by the Asia Internet Coalition (AIC) with regard to the proposed regulatory framework specific to social media and instant messaging platforms. The proposed regulation does not impact our operations and therefore we had no part in it. We did not and are not commenting on the matter.

We remain committed to collaborating with the government, reflecting our mission to contribute to the nation's development."

 

For the uninitiated, the announcement of the social media and messaging services licensing news was meant to combat the rise in cybercrime offences including scams and online fraud, cyberbullying, and sexual crimes against children. Failure to obtain said licence under the Communications and Multimedia Act 1998 after the effective date would be an offence.

While AIC is pleading a pause for the license, the organization understands and shares the same concerns of increasing online harmful content. Groups like Facebook don't seem to be doing much in combating online sponsored fake pages promoting scam sales. The best we can do is to have awareness to spot potential fraud content.