Mkini's FB pages were suspended due to 'technical issue', Meta claims

The brief suspension of Malaysiakini and KiniTV's Facebook pages on Sept 30 was due to “a technical issue”, Meta has claimed.

In an email reply to Malaysiakini on Oct 6, a Meta spokesperson said the issue had caused some Facebook pages to be temporarily disabled, but they were immediately rectified upon notification.

“With regard to the page suspension, we recently experienced a technical issue that resulted in some Facebook pages being temporarily disabled.

“This issue has been resolved, and impacted pages were reinstated shortly after we were notified,” the spokesperson said.

The company, however, did not provide any explanation of the supposed technical issue.

This was despite several queries seeking further details and clarification on a subsequent notification from Facebook on Oct 7, where the social media platform said they had removed Malaysiakini’s page after a review found that it “does not follow our community standards”.

Malaysiakini had asked the California-based company to elaborate on the nature of the technical issue that had caused the event, and how many other pages had also been affected.

“Thanks for letting us know. We can confirm that it was due to an error, and the page is currently in good standing,” the spokesperson said in its latest correspondence yesterday.

No clarification on minister’s remarks

Meta also has not responded to repeated queries regarding Communications Minister Fahmi Fadzil’s remarks during a press conference on Oct 1, where he claimed that Malaysiakini’s Facebook pages were not suspended or taken down by Meta.

The minister alleged that Meta’s office in Singapore informed him that Malaysiakini did not ask any specific questions regarding the suspension of its pages.

The Sept 30 suspension came hours after the news portal published a report detailing a network of 263 accounts on the social media platform, which engaged in a coordinated campaign to artificially boost support for Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim.

The government had since denied any involvement in the suspension, with Fahmi saying neither his office nor MCMC received or filed any complaints regarding the news report.

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