AUGUST 6 — Like millions of Malaysians, I have mixed feelings about the new licensing rule for online service providers, to be put into effect from January 1 next year.

I get the concerns about online safety, privacy and fraud. And prima facie it’s hard to argue against government pressure on companies like Meta and TikTok to get their act together and not prioritise likes, shares and downloads at the expense of more vitriol, toxicity and scams.

Yet I worry about restrictions to freedom of speech and unnecessary censorship. I also worry about possible government abuse and authoritarianism.

Section 233 of the Communications Multimedia Act (which makes it an offence to post obscene, indecent, false, menacing or offensive content with intent to annoy, abuse, threaten or harass) remains, uh, online and the latest licensing requirement cannot help but look like the logical next step to even more repression.

I get the need to place some responsibility on Online Service Providers (OSPs) to get serious about safeguards and not "wash their hands” of dangerous content.

But I also suspect that merely requiring a licence from these social media companies may not achieve these aims. Furthermore, there is no doubt that many such tools (especially Meta and WhatsApp) have played a part in promoting much needed activism and information-dissemination on many issues in the country.

Thus, a licensing requirement may seem a tad bit harsh.

Assuming nothing changes and this law does come into effect next year, I suppose the only way we can evaluate the effectiveness of this new requirement is whether or not, after January 1, the number of cases related to harassment or danger involving minors, AI fraud and abusive content drop dramatically as a result of action by the companies.

In addition, there should be watchdogs monitoring the government and anything which smacks of repression.

Whatever the case, it seems to me that moderation and even cancellation of certain content and even users will be inevitable, especially given the climate of abuse often fostered in social media.

There is simply no doubt that huge platforms like Meta are culpable to some degree of not being vigilant enough regarding what people post or say on their site so, perhaps optimistically, if nothing else this licensing requirement is a wake-up call (however ominous to the public) to these companies.

My personal take is that we need to take steps independently of the government to protect ourselves and our children each time we’re online.

The following steps have been repeated not a few times but perhaps they’re worth saying again.

When it comes to the protection of minors, as parents and guardians we need to foster digital literacy in our kids, engage in closer monitoring of their online activity, implement a reasonable measure of parental controls, inculcate a caution towards strangers, limit online time and so on.

In the matter of AI-generated fraud, I guess it wouldn’t hurt to stay constantly informed, learn to spot deep-fakes, be wary of phishing, increase personal cyber-security (eg, use stronger passwords) and generally be more vigilant online.

And if these OSPs don’t seem to be moderating their content, as users we can and should openly voice our complaints, make reports against toxic individuals, and in very extreme cases even file lawsuits if we believe it’s the right thing to do.

Ultimately, navigating this digital age without crashing and burning demands the attention and responsibility of everyone involved. The tech companies and government are going to battle it out; we have to make sure we don’t just sit around doing nothing.