Malaysia has ordered social media platform TikTok to take “immediate” steps to improve the way it regulates harmful content following the spread of messages it considers “grossly offensive” to the country’s king.
In a statement yesterday, the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) said TikTok had failed to take “sufficient and timely measures” to moderate what it considered to be defamatory content about Sultan Ibrahim, the current monarch.
The action was initiated due to an account allegedly linked to the king, which was spreading material “grossly offensive, false, threatening and insulting in nature, including AI-generated videos and manipulated images”, the MCMC said. All of these contravened the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Act 1998.
“Despite prior notifications and engagements, TikTok’s moderation response to the content was found to be unsatisfactory, including ensuring prompt removal and preventing further dissemination of harmful material,” the MCMC said.
The agency added that it had issued a “legal requirement” requiring TikTok, which is owned by Chinese company ByteDance, to take immediate steps to enforce stricter measures against harmful content and 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 grave insult made with malicious intent and are highly sensitive given that Her Majesty is a Malaysian leader and head of state who professes the Islamic religion,” the RPO said, according to the New Straits Times. He also called on “the competent authorities to act quickly”.
Malaysia, like many of its neighbors, has taken a strong stance on regulating social media networks in recent years, to prevent what it claims is 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 Malaysia has taken on TikTok, which had around 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 combat defamatory or misleading content, in line with government demands. Without specifying exactly which laws he had broken, Anwar had recently declared his intention to crack down on inflammatory speech related to the 3Rs issues.
In November, the Malaysian government announced it would follow Australia in banning social media access to Malaysians under 16 years old. Announcing the move, Communications Minister Fahmi Fadzil spoke of the need to protect young people from online harms such as cyberbullying, financial scams and child sexual abuse.
In its statement yesterday, the MCMC said social media companies “must act responsibly and promptly in dealing with content that is illegal, harmful or threatens public order, particularly in matters involving 3R sensitivities.”
TikTok has also come under close scrutiny in Indonesia, where it was forced in late 2023 to shut down its e-commerce app TikTok Shop in order to comply with a government ban on e-commerce transactions on social media. In Vietnam, authorities 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 pose risks to children.”
Malaysia’s latest move is part of a broader attempt by Southeast Asian governments to regulate the digital sphere to ensure it contributes to economic growth without disrupting established social and political norms. It now seems likely that the region will move decisively to establish controls over AI image and video generation tools.
Vietnam was the first Southeast Asian country to cross this border, with its Artificial Intelligence Law taking effect on March 1, guiding the research, development, supply, deployment and use of AI systems in Vietnam. Among its various provisions, according to one analysis, the law prohibits the use of AI tools for manipulation or deception, to exploit vulnerable groups or “to generate deceptive content designed to defraud individuals or harm their reputation.”