PARLIAMENT The Communication and Multimedia Ministry does not need a special committee or body to handle social media cases, its Deputy Minister Jailani Johari told the Dewan Rakyat in Kuala Lumpur today.

He said there were not many such cases and the ministry was able to handle them.  

“Our role is to assist in the investigations and inform the prosecutors. We don’t see the need for such a unit now,” he said in response to a supplementary question from Abdul Rahman Mohamad (BN-Lipis).

Abdul Rahman had wanted to know if the ministry needed to set up a special committe or body to focus on social media related issues.  

Meanwhile, Jailani said between Jan 1 and Sept 30 this year the ministry had received 8,101 complaints through the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC), with 63 percent of them related to dissatisfaction with service, whereas 37 percent was on new media content such as short message service (SMS), television and radio, cybercrimes and others, he added.

He said from 2008 to 2013, the MCMC had blocked 6,640 websites which contravened the Communications and Multimedia Commission Act of 1998 and other laws involving offences such as false bank websites, infringement of copyright, pornography and others.

He said MCMC was in the midst of investigating 29 cases under Section 233 of the Act, including the blog which insulted the Yang di-Pertuan Agong and the royal institutions.

“The latest is where the Sessions Court imposed a fine of RM20,000 on a 28-year-old individual who was convicted under the Act for insulting the Sultan of Johor, Sultan Ibrahim Sultan Iskandar on Facebook,” he said.  

- Bernama