Urban Wellbeing, Housing and Local Government minister Abdul Rahman Dahlan said Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak will not lose sleep over incessant attacks on social media.

"If you want to criticise the prime minister, you can do it, the PM is not going to lose sleep over it.

"Is it an issue? BBC reported it, so what? It doesn't really matter," said Abdul Rahman in pointing out that there are many Malaysians who thrived on "inconsequential issues" and politics of demonisation.

Abdul Rahman said this when asked about the latest #RespectMyPM online campaign that was launched in support of Najib but seen to have backfired.

"What matters is that the Malaysian people should be able to put the opposition under a magnifying glass. If you look at it, when was the last time Pakatan Harapan came out with a policy speech?

"Are you not concerned what their energy policies are, what their stand on the economy is, what is their social policy?" he asked.

The BBC was among foreign media outlets that picked up the news of how Najib's critics had mocked the hashtag with their own creations including #RejectMyPM and #SuspectMyPM.

Abdul Rahman, who is BN strategic communications director, had earlier appeared as a panellist during a forum organised in conjunction with the Malaysia Social Media Week Summit at Cyberjaya here.

Commenting further, the Kota Belud MP said BN had learnt lessons in managing social media campaigns to face the next general election.

Move beyond 'trivial issues'

"We are very confident. We are realigning our strategies as far as BN is concerned.

"We have a new communications minister and we have been engaging a lot of people and asking for their feedback. Basically we have all the information," he said.

The biggest challenge remained getting the people to read the government's stand on current issues, he added.

At the same time, Abdul Rahman urged Malaysians to move forward and elevate the political debate beyond 'trivial issues' to policy matters.

"You don't want people to vote for you because the other side is bad.

"You want to get their vote because you are better and you have a much better alternative than the other side," he noted.

The Malaysian Social Media Week Summit was organised by the Malaysian Social Media Chambers and endorsed by the Communications and Multimedia Ministry.