The Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) has blocked 2,753 websites for violating the Communications and Multimedia Act 1998 and other regulations as at October this year.

MCMC Monitoring and Enforcement Division head Zulkarnain Mohd Yasin said in the first 10 months of this year, the sites blocked included 2,611 phishing sites, pornographic content (103), contents violating the Communications and Multimedia Act 1998 (10).

Apart from that, he said 15 websites were also blocked for infringing the Syariah Criminal Offences Enactment, Official Secrets Act (two), Penal Code (two), Sedition Act (one) and others (nine).

“At the moment, MCMC is investigating 10 websites,” he told Bernama in Cyberjaya recently.

Zulkarnain said the government through MCMC is working with police and other enforcement agencies both locally and abroad to flush out social media abuse in the country.

From January to October this year, he said the MCMC Enforcement and Investigation Department (JPS) received 268 complaints which were investigated under Section 211 and 233 of the Communications and Multimedia Act 1998.

“Out of the 268 complaints received, 108 were police reports referred to JPS. The types of complaints comprised 35 percent on false content, indecency (23 percent), threats (14 percent), offensive (14 percent), pornographic (10 percent) and others not under the act (11 percent),” he said.

He said most of the complaints MCMC received were on fake or impersonating accounts, abuse of information and private details, disseminating deviant teachings and love scams.

Meanwhile, Zulkarnian said existing legislation such the Communications and Multimedia Act 1998, Postal Services Act 2012, Digital Signature Act 1997 and the Strategic Trade Act 2010 were adequate to combat cyber crimes and social website abuse.

Nonetheless, he said MCMC was facing challenges in enforcement and prosecution especially in gathering evidence for cyber crime cases.

- Bernama