Consider This: Social Media Ban (Part 1) — Rights, Risks, and Realities - Video Dailymotion

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Malaysia is planning to ban children under 16 years old from signing up for social media accounts. The move mirrors Australia’s restrictions, and signals a growing global push to limit young people’s online exposure. However, Malaysia intends to enforce these age restrictions using eKYC identity checks. Is this the right policy tool for the harm we’re trying to address? On this episode of #ConsiderThis Melisa Idris speaks with Dr Benjamin Loh, Course Director, Bachelor of Digital Media & Communication, Monash University Malaysia.

Transcript

00:00hello and good evening i'm melissa idris welcome to consider this this is the show where we want

00:15you to consider and then reconsider what you know of the news of the day in 2026 malaysia plans to

00:21ban children under the age of 16 from signing up for social media accounts now the move mirrors

00:28australia's sweeping restrictions and signals a growing global push to limit young people's

00:35exposure online tonight on the show we'll ask are we targeting the right problems and are we prepared

00:44for the trade-offs that protection will require us to give up joining me on the show is dr benjamin lo

00:51who's the course director for monash university malaysia's bachelor of digital media and

00:57communication ben good to have you on the show always thank you so much for joining me um so

01:02malaysia is planning to ban social media accounts for those under 16 by using um the ekyc approach the

01:11electronic know your customer approach so maybe you can talk us through what exactly ekyc is and

01:18whether or not it is the right policy tool for the harm that we are trying to address here i see thank

01:24you so much melissa always happy to be on on board uh yes ekyc is the approach that we are apparently

01:31going to use to ban under 16 from using social media um ekyc if you guys are if you're not familiar

01:37is basically the method of trying to verify the identity of an account holder using um some form of

01:43verification and in most cases it's going to be some sort of id verification so for malaysia is going to be either

01:49your identity card your passport or other forms of id essentially now the problem of course is that

01:55this is always this is seen as an invasion of privacy to a certain extent because it is also

01:59essentially means that if you want to use any social media you can no longer use it in an anonymous

02:04fashion you cannot make any anonymous accounts everybody needs to the basically the social media

02:09companies will know who is used who is registering at any single time so this is the major concern that was

02:15that that comes with this kind of approach essentially oh help me understand that

02:20correctly so no one can have multiple accounts or anonymous accounts anymore uh it's unclear whether

02:28that is possible but in terms of having uh i think i think again the government has not revealed how

02:34they're actually going to implement this but from the way that we understand it is that if you want to

02:38have an account you need to verify your age through an id of sorts so while um you probably can make

02:45multiple accounts you will not be able to make them anonymously right and definitely not make it for

02:50someone who is under uh 16 years old uh ben so let's take a look at what's happening with australia

02:55because australia is enforcing a similar ban are the contexts the same i mean i'm just wondering

03:01what we can learn from the australia experience whether we should be watching australia as a sort of

03:08regulatory test case right now i think if you've been looking at the news everybody is paying

03:13attention to australia because australia i mean this whole idea of banning you know um teenagers

03:19under the age of under under a certain age or from using social media above above 13 essentially

03:24um is it's not it's not something new other countries in europe have been doing it for the

03:28last couple of years essentially but australia is doing it in a way that is very very different

03:32meaning that they're trying to expand the approach rather than just relying on either um the previous

03:37approach that america likes to use is basically um you just have to do a verbal consent you just have to

03:42to just have to indicate that you agree you assume that you're above this certain age and that's why

03:47you're using it uh whereas other kind other places are using similar to what we are proposing which is

03:52ekyc you need to have an id to verify australia on the other hand is using uh something in the middle

03:58basically whereby they do require you to verify your your age but they are also trying to implement

04:04other forms of collecting the information without using your id so what they are doing is that they are

04:10actually asking social media companies to do what is known as age inference or age assurance whereby

04:15you use other means of trying to um sort of like get to guess the age of the person essentially so

04:22this includes sort of like looking through a person's social media feed and see their past content

04:26and try to see whether or not they are have done uh they have said certain things or posted certain

04:31things that can reflect the age that they're doing so something like um if they're celebrating a birthday then they can say oh this is

04:38they celebrated their 16th birthday so this person is probably about uh 17 this year or things like

04:42that or even uh certain milestones in life like say that oh i just finished my driver's license or i just

04:48voted essentially so these are clear indications that this is obviously somebody who's an adult and

04:52whatnot as well uh but other approaches also include using ai methods whereby um you just have to upload a

04:58picture of yourself and the ai and the ai will sort of like try to guess your age based on the picture that

05:04you have essentially and um and so these are supposed to be the methods that they are going to use as

05:10the first approach before they ask you for your id essentially so uh right now a lot of social media

05:16companies that have agreed to to to implement this have tried different approaches in this way as well

05:21uh but we're also if you also look at the news there's a lot of reports about how there are a lot of

05:26uh teenagers who are able to bypass this you know trying to manipulate the pictures in different ways or

05:30just trying to circumvent it in other ways but and the government is again putting their foot down and

05:35so it's a little bit of a game of cat and mouse to see whether or not the teenagers will actually

05:39bypass this ban and whether the government and it's all its measures can go through with it again all

05:44idea of course is that to do as much as possible without asking for their personal id because that's

05:49when um the risk of uh data uh data breaches is going to happen so ben help me understand are you for

05:58the age restrictions or um on social media for under 16s or are you against it help me think through

06:05where where do you stand is it about restrict uh restricting social media for younger people or

06:11is it about the use of the ekyc approach that you object to i have a little i mean i am on the one

06:19hand i would say that i do think that we do that there needs to be social media controls to limit or

06:26to limit the damage that it does to our young people essentially you know because you're at this formative

06:30age and uh social media is doing a lot of harms rather than good in many cases as well that being said

06:36the approach to regulate it is where i have a problem you know this entire ekyc approach is where

06:41things can go dramatically wrong and again as we've seen uh if if you heard my main beef is that whenever

06:49the our government collects private data from malaysians it also always seems to be the main source

06:56of data breaches as well so uh that's always going to be a main concern so whenever there's any new

07:01measures from the government to collect this more data from us i'm always very wary as

07:06well and always going to be against it all for the most part okay yeah definitely i understand the

07:11concern about um privacy issues collecting data especially for from really young people as well

07:17talk to me a little bit about when you say regulating the tech platforms and clearly there this has to be

07:24hand in hand right there there there should be accountability and responsibility coming from tech

07:29companies but if we want to have them address the harms that children face online how do we do

07:36that without resorting to um approaches like the ekyc approach yeah so for me the very simple answer

07:45and this is where tech companies will always try to claim that that it's an impossible ask essentially

07:51is that they always claim that that it is uh for me it all boils down to content moderation or just

07:57moderation of their platforms you know tech companies have been basically dominating the public sphere they've

08:03been controlling the public sphere or become the platform for public discourses for the last more

08:08than 10 years now at this point essentially yet they always fall short in terms of whenever they are

08:13asked to oh you need to control what content comes on these things and they on the one hand they say

08:17that oh we're trying to defend freedom of speech but on the other hand they also say that it's an

08:22impossible thing to do because it's just too much content in there and it's not practical for humans to be

08:26involved in many cases but the thing is these are billion this is a trillion dollar industry and they

08:33make billions in profits on a yearly basis and they cannot afford to have people involved in the process

08:39it's a very ridiculous thing to us essentially and this all these measures of trying to get all these

08:44bands and whatnot it's i mean it's it's i would argue that i would only support it if it was proven to

08:52work and as we've seen before in many many situations where there are all these blanket

08:57bands that are done on on the basis of age it usually just results in two things number one people

09:02find a way to circumvent all of these blocks anyway or number two it forces these people to

09:08look for alternatives that are through unsafe spaces on the internet so they go into they expose

09:14themselves to you know to viruses to scams to malware and whatnot as well so it's a very problematic

09:19approach and i'm always against these these sort of like blanket bands as a result of that okay so

09:25i understand that um there are concerns where you have such heavy-handed regulation like this but

09:32why is it that so many parents are supportive of such a ban why is it that even though there are privacy

09:40and data concerns and there are concerns where young this could drive young people to seek other

09:49unsafe spaces why is it that parents are overwhelmingly supporting this proposal to ban

09:57young people on social media i think it's because you know it's it's very similar to other moral panics

10:03that we've seen over the last few decades whenever there's a new technology or a new genre of

10:07entertainment that appears it's usually um there's always this knee jerk reaction to try to restrict it or

10:14limited in many cases and i think with social media while there was no knee jerk reaction because social

10:19media basically encompassed the entire planet all at once so it was not just like the the younger

10:25generation but basically almost all ages were involved so this moral panic took a little bit

10:30longer to come into play but you know as we sort of saw with you know the the the the the stabbing case a

10:37few months back essentially a lot of parents feel that social media is putting their kids in a space that

10:43they are completely unprepared for and they're completely unaware of so in lieu of having any

10:48kind of like moderation again they they see that this is uh this is like controlled by tech companies

10:53who are unwilling to do anything so the next step of course is to make sure that the government steps in

10:57and just prevents people from doing it and and because they are so set on just trying to restrict it

11:03in this particular manner they're not there's not enough clarity about whether this is practical or not

11:08or what is the sort of like unintended consequences of doing it in this manner ben but the what i

11:15understand that uh platform accountability is ideal that this is i did i um what we want to achieve or or

11:22go towards however that's going to take many many years and to get that policy sorted because it's such

11:30a global many tech companies are global it's going to take a really long time to get this

11:34um to see this through in the meantime we have children who could be exposed and could have

11:41faced all these threats and risks online or even suffer uh from online bullying and the like

11:47how do we balance that because this seems to be the closest more achievable government regulation seems

11:54to be the most achievable um policy intervention right now as opposed to tech regulation is that a false

12:01assumption how do you see this um well i think that's a narrative that the tech companies would

12:06like to sort of like put it out there essentially for the most part and the thing is we've seen it

12:10before you know like like again looking to australia they did have the sort of like the the content

12:16code you know the the the news sharing code that they have essentially that did force uh tech companies

12:21to sort of like adhere to their regulations to certain extent so um while that can be done for look i mean

12:27that proves that while blanket bans is something that they always acquiesce to it also means that

12:31if you do want to force them to do some other forms of moderation that can also be done and

12:36that means that the governments have to step up and they have to sort of like put their foot down

12:40when it comes to dealing with tech companies in many cases ben thank you so much for being on the

12:45show always a pleasure talking to you dr benjamin lo from monash university malaysia there we're going to

12:50take a quick break here and consider this we'll be back with mark stay tuned

Consider This: Social Media Ban (Part 1) — Rights, Risks, and Realities

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