The Southeast Asian markets are currently grappling with a growing rise in online scams against minors with Malaysia and Singapore taking the lead.
This has left these countries with no further option than to expand oversight and moderation of leading social media apps to counteract the crimes.
Many of these malicious campaigns seem to be targeting young users and that’s why Malaysia is now licensing apps like X, TikTok, and Facebook as well as texting platforms like WhatsApp to better curb the rise.
The same is taking place in neighboring nation Singapore which has also seen a massive spread in online scams targeting minors. The goal appeared to be related to not only detecting but also ensuring such scams aren’t repeated by swift and serious action against the activities.
Remember, some of these nations in Southeast Asia entail a massive use base that could be some of the biggest in the world. And the high adoption rates mean a rise in online scams.
Trends proved how threat actors tend to target more e-commerce platforms and social media apps because of how much anonymity is provided to users. Today, it wouldn’t be wrong to mention that phishing, scams, and ransomware are growing to new peaks as we speak and transforming into a pressing issue for several reasons.
The latest regulation by Malaysia will force online apps to enable license registration and renewal each year. And if it’s not done, the platform would be designated as illegal and would be forced to pay penalties that hit the $107k mark.
The main goal here seems to be the designing of a great framework for regulation that ensures the safest and most secure ecosystem on the web. Moreover, licensing in Malaysia would be added to those apps that are used by more than the country’s 25% population, which is close to 8M individuals. In that design, a strategy to start a kill switch would be rolled out to get rid of any dubious material.
Remember, Malaysia does have laws in place as we speak that address issues linked to online harm but they do not apply to those present outside the nation. Similarly, there are no legal obligations that mandate such apps to take the right measures on time against those involved in this form of harm.
A whopping 2.5B ringgit was highlighted by the police as being lost in online scams, two years back so the threat is very real.
Meanwhile, a lot of experts are speaking about supporting these social media regulations in the country but they could come at a cost. And that entails a rise in abuse and suppression of users’ dissenting voices.
The same goes for Singapore where cybercrime is on the rise. The number of scams recorded in last year alone hit a whopping 46,500 cases and that’s a staggering 47% rise than what was seen in the year before. Losses in online scams went up to $486M as per the nation’s police force records. And the leading cause of these scams was e-commerce.
The country did and is rolling out new measures including forcing sellers in various leading social media apps to undergo identity verification if and when considered as a risk to the public. Amongst those included Meta’s Facebook where a lot of scams had been recorded.
This is one of many new measures to ensure proper regulation of cyber activities considered dangerous online. These nations realize that ensuring the right balance between strict regulations and the right level of trust will only give rise to success and prevent the entire buying and selling activity from being impacted negatively.
Image: DIW-Aigen
Read next: ChatGPT vs Gemini vs Claude: Which Generative AI Model Is Best For Creating Trending Content?
This has left these countries with no further option than to expand oversight and moderation of leading social media apps to counteract the crimes.
Many of these malicious campaigns seem to be targeting young users and that’s why Malaysia is now licensing apps like X, TikTok, and Facebook as well as texting platforms like WhatsApp to better curb the rise.
The same is taking place in neighboring nation Singapore which has also seen a massive spread in online scams targeting minors. The goal appeared to be related to not only detecting but also ensuring such scams aren’t repeated by swift and serious action against the activities.
Remember, some of these nations in Southeast Asia entail a massive use base that could be some of the biggest in the world. And the high adoption rates mean a rise in online scams.
Trends proved how threat actors tend to target more e-commerce platforms and social media apps because of how much anonymity is provided to users. Today, it wouldn’t be wrong to mention that phishing, scams, and ransomware are growing to new peaks as we speak and transforming into a pressing issue for several reasons.
The latest regulation by Malaysia will force online apps to enable license registration and renewal each year. And if it’s not done, the platform would be designated as illegal and would be forced to pay penalties that hit the $107k mark.
The main goal here seems to be the designing of a great framework for regulation that ensures the safest and most secure ecosystem on the web. Moreover, licensing in Malaysia would be added to those apps that are used by more than the country’s 25% population, which is close to 8M individuals. In that design, a strategy to start a kill switch would be rolled out to get rid of any dubious material.
Remember, Malaysia does have laws in place as we speak that address issues linked to online harm but they do not apply to those present outside the nation. Similarly, there are no legal obligations that mandate such apps to take the right measures on time against those involved in this form of harm.
A whopping 2.5B ringgit was highlighted by the police as being lost in online scams, two years back so the threat is very real.
Meanwhile, a lot of experts are speaking about supporting these social media regulations in the country but they could come at a cost. And that entails a rise in abuse and suppression of users’ dissenting voices.
The same goes for Singapore where cybercrime is on the rise. The number of scams recorded in last year alone hit a whopping 46,500 cases and that’s a staggering 47% rise than what was seen in the year before. Losses in online scams went up to $486M as per the nation’s police force records. And the leading cause of these scams was e-commerce.
The country did and is rolling out new measures including forcing sellers in various leading social media apps to undergo identity verification if and when considered as a risk to the public. Amongst those included Meta’s Facebook where a lot of scams had been recorded.
This is one of many new measures to ensure proper regulation of cyber activities considered dangerous online. These nations realize that ensuring the right balance between strict regulations and the right level of trust will only give rise to success and prevent the entire buying and selling activity from being impacted negatively.
Read next: ChatGPT vs Gemini vs Claude: Which Generative AI Model Is Best For Creating Trending Content?
