Malaysian parents have welcomed plans to bar children from having social media accounts, but are less keen on a proposal to push state-sanctioned family content to stop the consumption of damaging online material.
Communications Minister Fahmi Fadzil warned parents on Tuesday against overusing mobile devices as “digital nannies” that keep children occupied. Fadzil said he had personally come across very young children who had their own TikTok accounts despite being below the minimum age limit of 13 set by such social media platforms.
The government said it was studying the possibility of enforcing a ban on children below the age of 13 from having social media accounts to protect them from harmful “brain rot” – a term for repetitive short-form content that has been blamed for behavioural changes in young people.
The plan could also include increasing the amount of locally produced family-friendly content approved by the government, as well as digital literacy modules for children aged 13 and older to help them navigate the deluge of information available online, Fahmi told parliament.
Parents who spoke to This Week in Asia said barring young children from having their own social media accounts was a good move, but argued that it was still a struggle to keep tabs on their children’s digital consumption habits.
“It is difficult for me and my husband to constantly monitor what our children are watching because a lot of times we have to bring work home,” said sales executive Azira Ghazali, 32.
The mother of two said her children, aged seven and four, were barred from using apps like TikTok and Instagram, but added that she and her husband did let them watch YouTube to keep them occupied.
“I know that we have to check on what they are watching, but it would help us a lot if the government could filter out all that nonsense content,” she said.
Australia leads the Asia-Pacific in its approach to protecting young people from the excesses of the internet. This week, its lawmakers agreed to restrict YouTube – alongside other social media platforms – to those aged at least 16 years, as part of controls that are set to come into force in December.
Malaysia has progressively imposed strict laws on social media, seeking to limit its encroachment on societal norms and combat rampant scams, online gambling and the sharp rise in cyberbullying and sexual exploitation, especially targeted at children.
The Southeast Asian nation in January imposed mandatory licensing for social media and online messaging platforms, requiring apps with at least 8 million local users to secure a licence to operate in the country.
Forcing children to consume only content approved by the government may end up backfiring, however, as children are keenly aware of the many loopholes that can be found on the internet, according to 40-year-old homemaker Kelly Chang.
“Even if you ban something, children will find some way to access it because that’s what all their friends are watching,” she said.
Chang has imposed a strict limit of one hour a day for her two children, aged 11 and nine, for online entertainment. Even then, she said they had caught the “Italian Brain Rot” bug.
Widely popular among Generation Alpha – those born from 2010 – Italian Brain Rot is a recent trend of surreal and nonsensical content that includes images and videos of hybrid creatures with supposedly Italian-sounding names like Cappuccino Assassino and Chimpanzini Bananini, all generated using artificial intelligence.
“I hate that Italian Brain Rot stuff. None of it makes sense,” Chang said. “But I also don’t want my children to be left out. We just have to keep things in moderation.”
Minister Fahmi’s plan to curb “brain rot” and supplant it with government-sanctioned content also drew flak on Malaysia’s discordant social media, with some accusing the government of instead narrowing the space for free speech.
“His brain has become rotten since becoming minister,” read one comment, playing on the “brain rot” term.
