Malaysia has ordered the social media platform TikTok to take “immediate” steps to improve how it regulates harmful content following the circulation of what it said were “grossly offensive” posts about the country’s king.
In a statement yesterday, The Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) said that TikTok had failed to “take sufficient and timely action” to moderate what it said was defamatory content about Sultan Ibrahim, the current monarch.
The action was initiated due to an account purported to be linked to the king, which disseminated material that was “grossly offensive, false, menacing, and insulting in nature, including AI-generated videos and manipulated images,” the MCMC said. All of these contravened Malaysia’s Communications and Multimedia Act 1998.
“Despite prior notifications and engagements, TikTok’s moderation response to the content has been found unsatisfactory, particularly in ensuring prompt removal and preventing further dissemination of harmful material,” the MCMC stated.
The agency added that it had issued a “statutory demand” requiring TikTok, which is owned by China’s ByteDance, to take immediate steps to enforce stronger measures against harmful content, and to provide “a formal explanation regarding its moderation failures.”
The TikTok account in question, which operated under the name “Sultan Ibrahim Ismail,” produced insulting content targeting the King, the Royal Press Office (RPO) said in a statement earlier this week.
“The allegations constitute a serious insult made with malicious intent, and are highly sensitive given that His Majesty is a Malay Ruler and Head of State who professes the religion of Islam,” the RPO stated, according to the New Straits Times. It also called on “the relevant authorities to act swiftly.”
Malaysia, like many of its neighbors, has taken a robust position toward the regulation of social media networks in recent years, to prevent what it claims has been a rise in harmful and disruptive content, including online gambling, pornography, and posts related to the so-called “3Rs”: race, religion, and royalty.
This is not the first time that Malaysia has taken aim at TikTok, which had an estimated 18.5 million active users in 2025, out of a population of around 36 million. In late 2023, Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s administration claimed that the platform had failed to curb defamatory or misleading content in line with government requests. Although it did not specify exactly what laws it had transgressed, Anwar had recently stated its intention to crack down on inflammatory speech related to 3R issues.
In November, the Malaysian government announced that it would follow Australia in banning access to social media for Malaysians under 16 years of age. In announcing the decision, Communications Minister Fahmi Fadzil cited the need to protect youths from online harms such as cyberbullying, financial scams, and child sexual abuse.
In its statement yesterday, the MCMC said that social media companies “are expected to act responsible and expeditiously in addressing content that is unlawful, harmful, or threatens public order, particularly in matters involving 3R sensitivities.”
TikTok has also come under scrutiny in Indonesia, where it was forced in late 2023 to close down its e-commerce app TikTok Shop in order to comply with a government ban on e-commerce transactions on social media. In Vietnam, the authorities have accused TikTok of “failing to effectively block content that violates Vietnamese law” in addition to storing illegal information and content that could “incite violence and posed risks to children.”
The latest Malaysian move is part of a broader attempt by Southeast Asian governments to regulate the digital sphere to ensure that it contributes to economic growth without unsettling established social and political norms. It now seems likely that the region will move robustly to establish controls on AI image and video generation tools.
Vietnam has been the first nation in Southeast Asia to move on this frontier, with its Law on Artificial Intelligence coming into effect on March 1, guiding the research, development, provision, deployment, and use of AI systems in Vietnam. Among its various provisions, according to one analysis, the law outlaws the use of AI tools for manipulative or deceptive practices, to exploit vulnerable groups, or “to generate deceptive content designed to defraud individuals or harm their reputation.”
