The top management of TikTok has been summoned to federal police headquarters in Malaysia (Bukit Aman, Kuala Lumpur) on Thursday following delays by the company in cooperating with the Royal Malaysian Police to address the spread of fake news on the platform, said Communications Minister Fahmi Fadzil.

He said the issue included a recent viral post involving an individual who claimed to be a pathologist in the case of Zara Qairina Mahathir, national news agency Bernama reported on Tuesday.

“TikTok was very slow in providing information to PDRM (Royal Malaysian Police), to the point that I had to call TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew to inform him, ‘this is a crime that’s being committed and your organisation is very slow’.

“We cannot allow such an attitude, and Insya-Allah, there will be a meeting at Bukit Aman attended by the Inspector General of Police Mohd Khalid Ismail and Attorney General Mohd Dusuki,” he told reporters after the AI Grand Prix Conference 2025 on Tuesday.

Apart from TikTok, Fahmi said Meta Platforms Inc (Meta), the parent company of Facebook, will also be summoned to explain the spread of immoral content on its platform.

He said among the issues identified was the dissemination of paedophilia-related content detected under Op Pedo involving an online group called Geng Budak Sekolah, which went viral on WhatsApp and Facebook.

“We see these platforms are not taking the matter seriously, so the dialogue process will continue, and we will stress that Malaysian law applies to them and they must comply. We will summon every platform,” he said.

Meanwhile, Fahmi said the government is studying the need to make identity verification mandatory for all sales transactions on social media platforms.

He said the move aims to curb misuse of fake accounts often linked to fraud, online gambling ads and deepfake content.

“Many crimes on social media are carried out by perpetrators hiding behind fake accounts. Many are deepfake accounts, gambling ads, scams and paedophilia — all fake accounts.

“I see there may be a need for the government to adopt a policy that if you want to sell goods online, there must be identity verification on the platform. If you want to place an ad on Facebook, there must be real details — something Facebook has refused to do,” he said, adding that Singapore has already implemented such a measure.

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