Malaysia on June 1 officially began enforcing regulations prohibiting children under the age of 16 from holding social media accounts, becoming one of the latest countries to strengthen protections for minors in the digital environment.
Under the new rules, social media platforms are required to implement age-verification systems and prevent users under 16 from creating accounts. The regulations apply to platforms with at least eight million users in Malaysia, including Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and YouTube.
Companies that fail to comply with the requirements may face fines of up to 10 million MYR (2.5 million USD). Parents, however, will not be penalised if their children circumvent the safeguards and succeed in registering accounts.
The Malaysian Government said the measure is intended to protect children from harmful content, cyberbullying and platform features designed to encourage excessive time spent online.
The Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) emphasised that the measure is not intended to block children from using the internet entirely, but rather to ensure greater responsibility among technology companies, parents, and guardians in protecting young users online.
Accordingly, platforms are required to incorporate safety features from the product-design stage, limit mechanisms that may encourage compulsive or addictive use, and proactively detect and remove underage accounts as well as harmful content.
