KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia’s communications regulator said it granted Tencent’s WeChat and ByteDance’s TikTok licenses to operate in the country under a new social media law, but that some other platforms had not applied.
The law, aimed at tackling rising cybercrime, requires social media platforms and messaging services with more than 8 million users in Malaysia to obtain a license or face legal action. It came into effect on Jan. 1.
In a statement on Wednesday, the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission said messaging platform Telegram was in the final stages of obtaining its license, while Meta Platforms, which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, had begun the licensing process.
The regulator said X had not submitted an application because the platform said its local user base did not reach the 8 million threshold. The regulator said it was reviewing the validity of X’s claim.
Alphabet’s Google, which operates video platform YouTube, had also not applied for a license after raising concerns about the video sharing features of YouTube and its classification under the licensing law, the regulator said. It did not state the concerns or how they relate to the law but said YouTube must adhere.
“Platform providers found to be in violation of licensing requirements may be subject to investigation and regulatory actions,” the regulator said.
Malaysia reported a sharp increase in harmful social media content in early 2024 and urged social media firms, including Meta and short video platform TikTok, to step up monitoring of their platforms.
Malaysian authorities deem online gambling, scams, child pornography and grooming, cyberbullying and content related to race, religion and royalty as harmful.
The companies do not publish the number of users per country on their platforms.
According to independent data provider World Population Review, WeChat has 12 million users in Malaysia.
Advisory firm Kepios said YouTube had about 24.1 million users in Malaysia in early 2024, TikTok 28.68 million users aged 18 and above, Facebook 22.35 million users, and X had 5.71 million.

Damascus: Syria’s minister of information in the country’s transitional government told AFP he is working toward a free press and committed to “freedom of expression,” after decades of tight control under the country’s former rulers.
“We are working to consolidate freedoms of the press and expression that were severely restricted” in areas controlled by the former government of Bashar Assad, said the minister, Mohamed Al-Omar, after Islamist-led rebels on December 8 ended more than five decades of rule by the Assad clan.
Syria’s ruling Baath party and the Assad family dynasty heavily curtailed all aspects of daily life, including freedom of the press and expression with the media a tool of those in power.
Reporters Without Borders, a freedom of information watchdog, ranked Syria second-last on its 2024 World Press Freedom Index, ahead only of Eritrea and behind Taliban-ruled Afghanistan.
“There was a heavy restriction on freedom of the press and expression under the regime which practiced censorship. In the period to come we are working on the reconstruction of a media landscape that is free, objective and professional,” Omar said during an interview with AFP on Tuesday.
He is part of the interim administration installed in Damascus by the victorious rebel coalition led by Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham.
The group has its origins in the Syrian branch of the jihadist group Al-Qaeda and is designated a terrorist organization by numerous governments, but has sought to soften its image in recent years.
Diplomats from around the region and from the West have made contact with Syria’s new rulers, who have also vowed to protect the country’s religious and ethnic minorities.
Omar was previously minister of information in the self-proclaimed Salvation Government, the civil administration set up in 2017 by HTS in the rebel holdout of Idlib province, in Syria’s northwest. It was from Idlib that the rebels began their lightning advance toward Damascus, 13 years into the country’s civil war.
After the conflict erupted in 2011 with the government’s brutal repression of pro-democracy protests, Assad tightened restrictions on independent journalism.
“We don’t want to continue in the same way, that is, have an official media whose aim is to polish the image of the ruling power,” Omar said.
Following Assad’s overthrow and flight to Moscow, Syrian media outlets which had trumpeted his regime’s glories quickly adopted a revolutionary fervor.
On Tuesday Omar held an exchange with dozens of Syrian journalists to discuss the transition.