PRACTICE OF 'SHARENTING' OPENS SPACE FOR ONLINE CRIMES INVOLVING CHILDREN - FAHMI

PUTRAJAYA, Dec 17 (Bernama) -- The practice of excessive 'sharenting' by a few parents has opened up space for online crimes, especially involving children, said Communications Minister Fahmi Fadzil.

He said there are parents who 'over share' their children's school information, including school uniforms and badges, thus becoming targets for irresponsible parties to misuse the information.

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"If there are children under 13 years old, do not allow them to open social media accounts and I would also like to remind all of us to be more careful with what we share online...we do not know who will store and use the information.

"In fact, on Facebook, they post pictures of little girls wearing baju kurung and there is this group with tens of thousands of members saying indecent things. I don't want the people to take the issue of online safety lightly, this online harm really happens," he said when speaking at the Ministry of Communications' Monthly Assembly for December here today.

The word sharenting is basically a combination of two words, namely 'sharing' and 'parenting', and the term 'sharenting' refers to the phenomenon of parents sharing photos and videos of their children and other identifying information on their own social media accounts.

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Fahmi also proposed that a pledge regarding online safety involving children be introduced by next year at the Ministry of Communications level which would be an official commitment by the ministry's staff to raise awareness of online safety.

Regarding the social media service license which will come into effect on Jan 1, Fahmi stressed that the decision is to ensure that social media platforms comply with Malaysian laws and are responsible for the activities that occur on their platforms.

"Our intention is not to restrict their rights to do business and operate in Malaysia but we have found that many problems are occurring and that such platforms are not strict in complying with the laws in our country.

"On Facebook alone, we were told that the platform generated RM2.5 billion in profits through ad sales including scam ads and online gambling which caused huge losses to Malaysians.

"The Commercial Crime Investigation Department reported that Malaysians lost RM432 million due to scams on Facebook," he said, adding that it was the government's commitment to ensuring safe Internet use for all parties.

All social media and internet messaging services, which currently have at least eight million registered users in the country, are required to apply for a Content Applications Service Provider Class Licence under the Communications and Multimedia Act 1998 (Act 588).

-- BERNAMA