KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 16 — Malaysia should prevent teenagers from having social media accounts until the age of 16, instead of just those below age 13, Jelebu MP Datuk Seri Jalaluddin Alias said today.
Highlighting the various problems in Malaysia’s schools, Jalaluddin said students today are overexposed to negative influences on social media and that such influence was also to blame for teen violence.
“What I want to say may not be so popular, quite conservative and maybe excessive, but I think it is time for the government to carry out a more serious and large-scale filtering on materials that can be accessed on social media,” the Umno lawmaker said in the Dewan Rakyat.
Jalaluddin agreed with Communications Minister Datuk Fahmi Fadzil’s statement yesterday that social media platforms would be required to carry out identity verification to ensure children below age 13 do not own social media accounts.
But Jalaluddin went one step further by proposing to Fahmi to raise the age limit to 16.
“We increase it a bit to 16 years old, no access to social media. If it is said that we are backwards, it’s ok, no problem, as long as the future generation will have more quality,” he said.
He pointed out that Australia has made a new law to have a “social media minimum age”, where social media platforms are responsible for taking reasonable steps to prevent those aged below 16 from opening social media accounts.
He warned that not taking this issue seriously would make it a “time bomb” for the coming generations, and that it would result in an “uncontrollable” generation.
He had listed various problems in Malaysia’s schools, including deaths, bullying, rape cases, smoking, truancy, gambling, and disciplinary problems, calling it a tragedy in the country’s education system.
“All these cases that happened is a wake-up call to the government and the ministry in facing and handling these problems,” he said.
He said there should be a serious post-mortem of Malaysia’s education system by an independent third party, including whether there were problems in the system and if educators have been too “soft” to students.
He echoed public calls for teachers to be empowered to discipline students, highlighting that there had been cases where disciplinary action resulted in court cases or police reports from parents.
Kubang Kerian MP Datuk Seri Tuan Ibrahim Tuan Man voiced support for Jalaluddin’s proposal for tighter social media controls, but questioned the idea of whether such restrictions should be capped at certain ages.
Questioning the idea for banning social media accounts for those aged below 13, he questioned if it meant those aged 15 or 18 could have access and said that these negative elements would equally not be suited for adults.
“So MCMC must be firm in this, pornographic, violent and lewd materials, including toys, have to be fully blocked,” he said when calling on online regulator Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission to impose full blockages on such materials which he said would harm youths.
The PAS lawmaker said failure to have controls on such elements would result in school students trying it out in schools.
Under the Child Act in Malaysia, a child is defined as those aged below 18.
