Malaysia has issued a legal demand to TikTok regarding shortcomings in content moderation.
The MCMC’s initial formal enforcement under Section 39 of the Online Safety Act 2025 targets TikTok, with a potential financial penalty of RM10 million if the platform fails to implement an enforceable moderation plan. According to Reuters, Malaysia’s Communications and Multimedia Commission has issued a formal statutory demand to TikTok for its ongoing inability to moderate offensive content on the platform.
This demand marks the first visible enforcement action under Section 39 of the Online Safety Act 2025, which has been in effect since January 1, 2026. The demand is part of the deemed-licensing regime, first detailed by Bloomberg in December 2025, where large social media platforms with a minimum of eight million Malaysian users—such as TikTok, Meta, Telegram, and WeChat—are automatically classified as licensees under the Communications and Multimedia Act 1998.
The MCMC's enforcement notice from January 2026 formally activated the statutory-duty framework. Under Section 39 of the ONSA, the MCMC can levy a financial penalty of up to RM10 million on non-compliant providers, recoverable as a civil debt. Communications Minister Fahmi Fadzil has been moving toward this enforcement for nearly nine months. Coverage by Free Malaysia Today in September 2025 included his warning that TikTok "may face legal action for failing to address ongoing concerns about content moderation." The specific issue regulators have highlighted is regarding the moderation of Tamil-language live streams and short videos.
From January to August 2025, the MCMC requested the removal of 86,732 TikTok videos, achieving an 86% removal rate, but 10,730 videos remained untouched. The new statutory demand requires TikTok to submit a formal moderation plan with measurable commitments regarding workforce and to demonstrate compliance over a specified period.
TikTok's prior responses during engagement sessions did not satisfy the regulator concerning the number of Tamil and Malay language moderators reviewing content on TikTok Live and short videos. During the September 2025 meeting, where Fahmi escalated the public threat, this information had not been provided in numerical terms for the third time.
The international regulatory environment is more comprehensive than Malaysia’s specific demand. In the UK, Ofcom is issuing comparable enforcement actions against TikTok, Roblox, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and YouTube, with fines already imposed on smaller non-compliant providers ranging from £520,000 to £1.05 million. Additionally, a complaint filed by Fairplay and the NCSE against Roblox in the US aligns with this broader movement for platform accountability, particularly concerning child safety. Malaysia's approach has positioned it as the most active Section 39-style regulator in Southeast Asia.
What the demand does not clarify, based on current reports, is the timeline for TikTok to submit the moderation plan, the specific incidents that led to the formal demand (beyond the history of engagement sessions), or how the financial penalty relates to the RM10 million cap. Thursday's report signifies the first visible test of this demand. TikTok's response, anticipated within the statutory time frame, will be a crucial indicator of how the deemed-licensing regime manifests into operational moderation obligations for major platforms serving Malaysian users.
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The Communications and Multimedia Commission of Malaysia has formally issued a Section 39 statutory demand to TikTok due to an ongoing inability to manage inappropriate content.
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Malaysia has issued a legal demand to TikTok regarding shortcomings in content moderation.
Malaysia's Communications and Multimedia Commission has formally delivered a Section 39 statutory demand to TikTok due to its ongoing inability to manage inappropriate content.