8,540 3R posts taken down since 2022 as govt steps up AI monitoring

KUALA LUMPUR: A total of 8,540 social media posts involving race, religion and royalty (3R) have been taken down since 2022, the Dewan Rakyat was told today.

National Unity Minister Datuk Aaron Ago Dagang said the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) had worked with social media platforms to remove the content as part of efforts to prevent racial tensions.

He said the government was also using artificial intelligence (AI) to monitor social media trends and public sentiment, particularly on platforms popular among young people, including TikTok, X, Threads and Instagram.

"The approach involves monitoring, screening and detecting sensitive content involving race, religion and royalty to enable preventive action before such issues spread and trigger tensions," he said in reply to V. Sivakumar (PH-Batu Gajah), who asked about the government's use of AI to address national unity issues.

Aaron said AI was also being used to detect digitally manipulated content, including deepfake videos, audio recordings and images that could spread misinformation or provoke racial discord.

He said MCMC introduced the Artificial Intelligence Fact-check Assistant (AIFA) and the Sebenarnya.my portal to help the public verify questionable information before sharing it.

At the ministry level, he said the Centre for Reference on Sensitive Community Issues (Prisma) used digital monitoring and analytics to identify racial disputes, hate speech and neighbourhood tensions, including through real-time monitoring.

On resolving community disputes, Aaron said 5,028 mediation cases had been handled between 2023 and 2026.

"Common issues include neighbourhood quarrels, complaints involving cats and environmental problems, which we have been able to resolve through mediation," he said.

He said 11 mediation centres were operating nationwide, with another 13 planned.

The ministry also has 617 trained mediators, comprising 221 departmental officers, 388 Rukun Tetangga members and eight representatives from religious non-governmental organisations.