From January 2022 until August of this year, the bulk of websites that the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) prohibited were gambling websites.
The MCMC reports that 10,423 websites were prohibited overall during this time because of different legal infractions.
Of these, 3,271 were prohibited for pornography, 1,654 for copyright violation, and 4,484 for online gambling. Furthermore, 249 websites were prohibited due to content connected to prostitution, while 316 websites were deleted for participating in frauds or illicit online investments. The remaining 449 websites were blocked for unknown reasons.
According to the MCMC, 2021 saw the greatest number of dangerous websites banned in the previous five years—6,571 in total. Since then, there has been a downward trend in the number of prohibited websites: 2,127 were blocked between January and August 1st of this year, 3,724 in 2023, and 4,572 in 2022.
Along with other regulations that are implemented by the police, the Securities Commission, the Ministry of Domestic Trade and Cost of Living, and other authorities, the measures taken against these websites are in compliance with the Communications and Multimedia Act of 1998. According to the MCMC, prohibiting these websites also aids in the reduction of more general crimes including child sex trafficking, human trafficking, the selling of illicit drugs, and other organized crime.
In light of evolving technology, the MCMC underlined its dedication to working with regional service providers to keep these barriers functional. By strengthening and improving preventative measures—such as managing the domain name system—this cooperation seeks to give users a safe and secure online experience.
According to a study published on Tuesday by Sinar Project, Maxis Bhd and Time dotCom Bhd had adopted a “transparent DNS proxy” strategy, which prevented customers from using alternate DNS servers to access websites that the MCMC had officially blacklisted. According to the tech organization, this implies that customers’ queries are automatically sent to the DNS servers of the local service provider when they try to utilize alternative DNS providers like Cloudflare or Google.
