Telegram third provider to be licensed under new regulations

Service provider Telegram has been granted an Application Service Provider (ASP) C Licence to operate in Malaysia, said Communications Minister Fahmi Fadzil.

He said Telegram obtained a licence from the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) on Jan 2, making it the third service provider to be licensed under the licensing requirements for internet messaging and social media service providers.

“Meta, which operates Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, is currently still in the process of submitting several documents before obtaining a licence.

“But we expect the process to be completed in the near future,” he said at a press conference after witnessing the exchange of documents for the Malacca Digital Village Initiative agreement between MCMC and the Malacca government today.

Also present were Malacca Chief Minister Ab Rauf Yusoh, Communications Ministry secretary-general Mohamad Fauzi Md Isa, MCMC chairperson Mohamad Salim Fateh Din, and State Secretary Azhar Arshad.

Tencent (WeChat) became the first Internet messaging and social media service provider to receive ASP (C) followed by ByteDance (TikTok).

Fahmi said that for Google’s licensing, he had asked MCMC to continue its engagement and informed that action would continue if there were matters that violated communications laws.

“For example, such as scam and deepfake videos or online gambling played on YouTube, action can be taken against non-compliance and violations of laws in our country.

“The law is still in force and we are just continuing discussions because YouTube does not consider itself social media, but if we look at ‘YouTube Shorts’, it is similar to TikTok and this is one of the things that is being discussed and it will take some time,” he said.

For the X platform, he said MCMC was still managing the matter and needed some time as the platform had previously announced that its number of users in the country had not reached the threshold of eight million users.

- Bernama

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