Australia and Malaysia step up social media accountability

British humourist Stephen Fry was an early and enthusiastic adopter of online social media, but now he has turned his back on it because he says it has turned toxic on us.

He told Stuff's podcast Newsable it now contaminates our culture like sewage pollutes water.

"I can't swim here anymore. This is just now raw sewage. It's appalling."

His concerns are shared by whistleblowers who worked for big platforms.

Among those on the ABC's lid-lifting show Four Corners in Australia this week, former TikTok planning analyst Andrew Kaung said it was time for governments to crack down because self-regulation had failed.

"It goes against their objective, which to attract as many users as possible. It's [like] asking a tiger not to eat you."

Elon Musk is even wilfully misusing his own platform, endorsing Trump to the point of dancing on stage with him while X (formerly Twitter) was tweaked to give his messages massive exposure.

Political interests can also pay social media platforms to boost messages - and even foreign countries.

But it's not just a foreign problem.

Facebook was slow to react to the live-streaming of the mosque atrocity in Christchurch in 2019. It was vigilant and proactive ISPs here that stopped the spread of the video on local forums.

In October, Mediawatch looked at a sudden surge of scam ads on Facebook purporting to be RNZ news stories about well-known Kiwis doing shocking - but entirely made-up - things.

Writer and editor Dylan Reeve told Mediawatch he has reported hundreds of similar cases to Facebook's parent company Meta, but had no meaningful response.

RNZ's chief executive Paul Thompson had just been at a conference of public broadcasters in Canada, which called on social media platforms to "put in place safeguards and measures to address disinformation and impostor content".

"The incentives aren't there for it to be combated. So you're left with fighting it case by case, or perhaps hoping in time that regulation will be put in."

Earlier this year, proposals by the previous government to extend the scope of regulators to social media were scrapped by Internal Affairs Minister Brooke Van Velden.

But two governments in our part of the world are moving to make social media giants accountable.

In Australia this week, PM Anthony Albanese announced legislation for an age limit of 16 years on social media accounts.

"Social media is doing harm to our kids, and I'm calling time on it. The onus will be on social media platforms - not users," he said, adding there will be enhanced penalties to ensure compliance.

Malaysia's government recently announced that social media companies will operate under licence from 2025.

Malaysia had earlier reported an increase in harmful social media content and urged Facebook, TikTok and others to step up monitoring.

Platforms with more than 8 million registered users in the country must apply for an annual operating license in 2025, with stricter controls on data protection, child online safety and transparency in advertising.

"This is coming from the country's experience in polarising messages, fake news, disinformation and sometimes outright slander that threatens the fabric of the country," Ibrahim Suffian, a co-founder and director of the Merdeka Center for Opinion Research, a leading research outfit in Malaysia, said.

"Social media is the primary source of information for most Malaysians these days, particularly the younger generation. Social media platforms are under- regulated with a lot less oversight than the traditional media outlets," he told Mediawatch.

But will those changes protect users online, or will it pave the way for increased censorship?

"The public does have mixed views about this, in part because we have a history of semi-authoritarian government," he added.

"Civil society groups, independent journalists groups and most civil society members use social media to advocate causes they champion. Some of those relate to human rights, democracy and fighting corruption and so on. So there is a concern that this could curb voices that criticise government.

"But at the same time, it can also not be denied that social media is a fertile space for sharing ethnic hatred, complete misinformation and creating a lot of social unrest, especially in a multi-faith, multi-cultural country like Malaysia.

"A lot of people are looking at this from the standpoint of the past, when most media outlets were either controlled directly or indirectly by people in government or people very close to government."

It is not just an historic issue.

The Malaysia Star newspaper is part-owned by a political party. The national TV broadcaster RTM is effectively a government department.

"But - like everywhere else around the world - media readership, broadcast viewership have dropped and been replaced by social media. And a lot of people also use social media to communicate and trade so I think they are very cautious if they see government intruding into that space," Ibrahim Suffian told Mediawatch.

Back in 2017, Malik Ali, the founder of news radio station BFM told Mediawatch the government back then was misusing social media itself.

"We have 'cybertroopers' that work for the incumbent government ... giving either favourable comments - or comments against the general public's unfavourable comments. Some parties benefit from confusion and smokescreening stuff."

Norman Goh, who was then the social media editor of the country's leading online news start-up, MalaysiaKini (Malaysia Today), had to break off our chat when he got a call from home claiming his site had reported that the government was planning to make civil servants work six days a week.

"It was fake. It was spread through WhatsApp and Facebook. You can't really pinpoint who does it," he told me in 2017.

"It may not be affecting New Zealand right now. It will affect New Zealand one day," he warned me.

Seven years later, it is happening here.

Marking 25 years as an independent news outlet this month, MalaysiaKini columnist Ooi Kok Hin said it had "survived multiple raids and shutting down of different units and subsidiaries" over the years.

It now has more than 12 million social media followers in four languages.

"Social media has been like a blessing and also a curse," Ooi Kok Hin told Mediawatch.

"You really no longer have a monopoly of news sources. The government cannot control any one single source of information," said Ooi Kok Hin, who is also a campaigner for electoral reform in Malaysia.

"This is a new challenge for democracies like Malaysia - and I believe Australia and New Zealand too. On the one hand, you do not want to give government too much power to regulate social media or any news organisations, but I think some form of guideline or regulation, is necessary.

"They have no full policy or implementation detail yet so we are worried given our historic democratic and state repression.

"Public feedback has been divided into those two camps. One is very worried it could be used to shut down news websites, which has happened before in the past."

"In 2016 the Malaysian government shut down the medium.com website, it contained 1MDB scandal reporting.

"But we also need to stand up to these big tech companies and that's a sentiment that is also resonating with the Malaysian public.

"We want some accountability, hopefully by involving an independent media council or Parliament, so that it will not be unilaterally decided by the executive.

"It's completely new territory for not just Malaysia, but a lot of countries trying to regulate these big tech companies. I think it's time for social media companies to admit they are part of this industry."

Colin Peacock was in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in October with the assistance of the Asia New Zealand Foundation Te Whītau Tūhono.