The biggest action the nation has taken to far against such content came from Malaysia, which announced on Friday that it would sue Facebook parent company Meta Platforms for failing to remove “undesirable” posts.

Since taking office in November following a highly contested election in the Southeast Asian country that contributed to an increase in ethnic tensions, Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s administration has vowed to limit what it terms provocative posts that touch on race and religion.

The Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission said in a statement that Facebook has recently been “plagued by” a sizable amount of objectionable content relating to race, royalty, religion, defamation, impersonation, online gambling, and scam marketing.

It claimed that despite its repeated demands, Meta had not taken sufficient action, and that legal action was required to encourage cybersecurity accountability and safeguard consumers.

Meta made no responses to the problem.

When asked what legal action it might take, the commission responded in an email statement on Saturday that it may be against Malaysia’s Communications and Multimedia Act 1998 to permit the exploitation of network resources or application services.

The law also permits firm officials to be penalised with “wilfully providing means and aiding criminal activity” if prompt action is not taken, it said.

In Malaysia, where there is a sizable ethnic Chinese and Indian minority as well as a majority of Muslim ethnic Malays, race and religion are contentious topics.

The nation’s cherished royals are a sensitive subject, and anyone who criticises them may be prosecuted for sedition.

Just weeks away from elections in six states, which are anticipated to pit Anwar’s multiethnic coalition against a hardline Malay Muslim alliance, comes the action against Facebook.

With an estimated 60% of Malaysia’s 33 million population having a registered account, Facebook is the largest social media network in the country.

Large social media companies like Meta, Google’s YouTube, and TikTok are frequently inspected by regulatory authorities for the content that is posted on their platforms.

Governments in Southeast Asia have regularly asked for content to be removed.

Vietnam warned in 2020 to shut down Facebook if it did not accede to demands from the government to regulate more regional political information on its platform. The government reported last year that over 3,200 postings and videos that contained false material and broke local law had been taken down by social media companies operating in Vietnam during the first quarter.

In 2019, Facebook removed hundreds of local accounts, pages, and groups connected to a false news syndicate in Indonesia.

(Adapted from APNews.com)