KUALA LUMPUR, June 23 — Bursa Malaysia Bhd expressed its support to the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) to take action against Meta for failing to remove undesirable content relating to, amongst others, scam advertisements on its platform.

In a statement today, Bursa Malaysia said it had identified over 60 pages on Meta’s platform Facebook impersonating its chief executive officer (CEO), Datuk Muhamad Umar Swift, this year, with a spike in recent months.

"The exchange has been the target of scams with the ill-intentioned impersonation of Bursa Malaysia and its management on social media platforms, particularly its CEO, Muhamad Umar.

"As alerted through past media statements and social media postings, the exchange reiterates that these fake pages and sponsored advertisements have no relation to Muhamad Umar nor the exchange,” it said.

Bursa Malaysia stressed that any form of communication, other than via the exchange’s own verified and official website and social media channels, is not authorised or lawful and is designed to mislead or cheat the public.

"While the exchange takes prompt action to raise attention to detected scams and report the cases, the exchange is very concerned that the time taken for the removal of such pages by the relevant bodies greatly increases the risk of members of the public revealing personal information or being duped.

"The alarming incidence and rise of these scams via fake pages are of serious concern, and the exchange calls on Meta and all other social media entities to take swifter action to minimise or prevent malicious, misleading and/or illegal activities,” it added.

Meanwhile, Muhamad Umar said that despite submitting recurring takedown reports that establish a very simple and clear pattern of impersonation, Bursa Malaysia is very concerned that incidents of the same nature continue to occur.

"We need the relevant entities, including Meta, to put in place algorithms or checks to prevent or quickly detect and put a stop to these blatant scams, which thrive on identity theft and fraud.

Muhamad Umar said similar scam tactics regarding other notable Malaysian figures and companies had been found.

"Meta as an organisation should take further steps to prevent confusion and fraud among its users, and reputational damage and negative brand association to the affected individuals or entities,” he added.

According to the MCMC, 744 reports on online scams involving Facebook from January to 25 May 2023 were reported.

In May 2023, Communications and Digital Minister Fahmi Fadzil also called out the slow response time by Meta in detecting scams. — Bernama