Governments around the world are responding to the credible threat of online scams. Measures to build society’s resilience towards scams must be doubled down moving forward. — Photo: FAIHAN GHANI/The Star
DEBATE is rife following reports that the government is planning to regulate social media platforms.
On one hand, proponents argue — and sometimes quite rightfully — that social media platforms have not been diligent enough in removing harmful content such as scams, child sexual abuse material and hate speech, amongst others. Detractors on the other hand, put forward that a licensing regime could open room for abuse, especially if the parameters of the licensing framework remain unclear.
In this opinion piece, we argue that the way forward must strike a balance between these seemingly competing considerations.
Take scams, for example. Nary a day goes by without one hearing about another case of online scams in the country. In fact, PDRM reports that more than RM1.2bil were lost to online scams in Malaysia last year.
Far from being alone on this, the Global Anti-Scam Alliance puts losses globally at about US$1 trillion (RM4.67 trillion) in 2023, with Interpol warning that financial fraud is increasing worldwide on the back of technology that enables crime groups to better target their victims.
It is therefore no surprise that governments around the world have responded, or are planning to respond, to this credible threat. Measures that could be taken, such as tightening the law and introducing harsher punishments for scammers, may be intuitive to deter would-be scammers.
Nonetheless, the effectiveness of this deterrence may be reduced in cases where scammers operate outside of a country’s jurisdiction and/or are operating anonymously online — putting the arm of the law, while long, just out of reach.
Besides that, one may argue that this approach while necessary for retribution and reparation, may be difficult to implement at scale. This is, of course, not to say that harsher punishments for scammers should not be introduced, but rather to highlight the complexity of the problem.
Meanwhile, various campaigns have been launched to raise awareness of the problem and to share common techniques and tactics utilised by these scammers to gain their victim’s trust. This has been complemented with other measures such as an online database of individuals and bank accounts linked to fraudulent activities.
All these are to build society’s resilience towards scams, and must be doubled down moving forward, and we trust that this view is uncontentious.
This leaves the elephant in the room — the online spaces where scam content proliferates.
Here, it is important to highlight that most, if not all, of the mainstream social media platforms would have already deemed scam and scam-related content as unacceptable on their respective platforms. This means that if and once detected, the platforms would remove these contents as part of their moderation process.
What remains to be seen, however, is how effective are current moderation processes and if platforms have been diligent enough to remove scam content. In other words, having a content moderation policy and actually implementing it at a satisfactory level are completely different matters. Complicating this is how existing reporting measures lack meaningful transparency that is essential for effective scrutiny.
Exacerbating this issue on social media platforms is the apparent increase in deepfake content being used to promote scams.
So far, the Bursa Malaysia chief executive officer, the former Minister of Religious Affairs and a former world No 1 badminton player have all had their likeness similarly abused to promote fraudulent products. By abusing the likeness of these prominent figures, scammers leverage on their perceived credibility and standing within society to gain their victim’s trust.
Taken together, it is clear why regulating social media is attractive to address scams. By increasing the levels of accountability and responsibility held by these platforms, it can spur them to take greater action to combat online scams on their respective platforms.
Having said that, while this policy lever may be attractive, the onus is on the government to remain vigilant and cognisant of potential risks. For example, attempts to regulate social media platforms to address the proliferation of scam cases should be welcomed by all, but at the same time, should not open room for abuse.
Genuine effort must be made to strike the delicate balance between establishing an effective licensing regime and robust safeguards to ensure that these measures do not inadvertently curtail free speech.
Seen this way, it is clear that regulating social media platforms will be crucial to combat the rising number of online scams. Harsher punishments and public awareness campaigns, while important in their own right, fall short of addressing the platforms where these scammers prey on their victims.
In this regard, it is evident that a licensing regime can contribute towards better responsibility and accountability by platforms, but this must be done responsibly to prevent abuse.
Harris Zainul is the deputy director of research at the Institute of Strategic and International Studies (ISIS). Samantha Khoo is an intern at ISIS.
This article first appeared in Star Biz7 weekly edition.
