KUALA LUMPUR – Amendments to existing legislation or the introduction of new laws to specifically address cyberbullying will fail if enforcement agencies do not act promptly, according to experts, including lawyers, academicians, and cybersecurity professionals.
Speaking to Scoop, lawyer M. Pravin highlighted the recent death of 29-year-old TikTok influencer Rajeswary Appahu as a poignant reminder for the public and enforcement agencies to take cyberbullying cases seriously.
“Police should have acted immediately when the victim lodged a report detailing the harassment and threats she received. She must have been filled with fear when she lodged such a report. It should not have fallen on deaf ears,” he said.
“There is nothing normal about bullying, especially cyberbullying. In this case, the victim faced not just harassment but threats of rape and murder. This is beyond normal and should be investigated under the Penal Code, not just the Communications and Multimedia (CMA) Act 1998,” Pravin added.
Pravin, who represented Crackhouse Comedy Club owner Mohammad Rizal Johan Van Geyzel in his 2022 cybercrime case, also stressed the need for stricter guidelines and monitoring by social media companies such as TikTok and Facebook. He suggested that these platforms should be penalised or fined for allowing cyberbullying content to persist.
Rajeswary, known online as Esha, was found dead in her room on July 5, reportedly after a month of online bullying. Before her death, she lodged a report at the Dang Wangi police station, detailing violent threats made against her.
Following her death, police arrested two individuals and are investigating them under Section 506 of the Penal Code, Section 233 of the CMA 1998 and Section 14 of the Minor Offences Act 1955.
What is cyberbullying?
MCMC’s Online Harms and Information Security Committee chairman Derek Fernandez noted that while there is no specific definition for cyberbullying, it generally refers to bullying through digital technologies.
He explained that MCMC currently addresses cyberbullying using Section 233 of the CMA 1998, which makes it an offence to knowingly transmit offensive content with the intent to annoy, abuse, threaten, or harass another person.
“These individuals often hide behind unregulated social media platforms who, while claiming to have rules against cyberbullying, are under no legal obligation to act promptly or take effective, prompt, and preemptive measures to protect victims,” he said.
Derek said MCMC has a unit that monitors not only cyberbullying but other forms of online harm, despite millions of data communications that make it impossible to adequately monitor all violations.
“To get a sense of the volume involved, the MCMC requested the removal of 128,133 offensive or illegal content, which it flagged between January 1 and July 2024. A huge number of them – about 5% or over 6,300 pieces of content – involved harassment.
“The situation is far more difficult where cyberbullying is concerned because, unless a victim complains to the MCMC, it is difficult to determine if a post has the effect of the victim feeling bullied as different people respond differently to such content.”
Why do people resort to bullying?
Universiti Malaya associate professor of anthropology and sociology, Haslina Muhamad, said that common traits among bullies include a desire to dominate others and satisfaction in hurting others’ feelings. She pointed out that these behaviours often stem from upbringing but can also be influenced by peer pressure and other external factors.
“These days, people would often say things on social media nonchalantly, without understanding how words could hurt, and stay with a person, possibly destroying their self-confidence.
“It is important for kindness to be taught at home, in schools, and even in society. We should not normalise anybody, even leaving any ugly comments online.
“That’s one of the ways we can go back to creating a safe space for people because anonymity feeds these desires to ‘bully’, and it would often get people carried away thinking they can be mean and not get caught,” she said.
How can we best protect ourselves online?
While acknowledging that there is no “silver bullet” for ensuring safety and security, cybersecurity expert Murugason R. Thangaratnam emphasised the need for continuous and coordinated education of users, refined content moderation and policies, and a clear responsibility for social media companies to act proactively, ethically, and swiftly to prevent harm.
Even with technological advancements, policing online interactions and identifying and stopping cyberbullying remain challenging. Parents struggle to monitor their children’s online activities.
Murugason noted that it is time-consuming to oversee all the online channels that young people use. Social media companies, with millions of users, are continually seeking ways to improve their ability to identify cyberbullying on their platforms.
“Unfortunately, technology works in both directions. While companies develop methods to quickly and accurately identify cyberbullying, technology also helps cyberbullies evade these measures,” the chief executive officer of Novem CS Sdn Bhd said.
He said that despite these challenges, there has been no shortage of global efforts using data science to combat cyberbullying. Data science researchers, individuals, and companies with online communities are increasingly recognising the severity and prevalence of cyberbullying in our society.
Artificial intelligence is also being utilised to create tools that allow parents to monitor their children’s online interactions, Murugason said.
Senior lawyer Datuk Seri Rajan Navaratnam said that existing laws related to cybercrimes need to be revisited and amended to keep pace with technological advancements and the evolving methods employed by criminals. In some cases, there appear to be gaps in the laws during the investigation process.
“The other inherent problem faced by the Malaysian law enforcement agencies is the lack of state-of-the-art and new technologies in combating cybercrimes and that these agencies would have to continuously come up with new technological devices and to have continuous training in cybercrimes due to the rapid changes in technology.” – July 16, 2024