The Communications and Multimedia Content Forum of Malaysia (Content Forum) welcomes the suggestion made by the Minister of Youth and Sports YB Hannah Yeoh on improving social media training for young people.

Its chairman Kenny Ong said in a statement that as an industry-led organisation tasked with promoting self-regulation in creating and consuming content, the Content Forum has been actively carrying out various initiatives aimed at equipping the youth with the skills they need to be responsible digital citizens.

“Our past work in this area includes awareness-raising initiatives such as public dialogue sessions on cyberbullying, guidance for parents on monitoring their children’s use of the internet, and ways of creating an inclusive digital space for vulnerable communities such as persons with disabilities.

“Most recently in November last year, we collaborated with TikTok on the #BeliaSediaUndi campaign, which sought to empower young people on their voting rights and engage them in combating online misinformation.

We have also established partnerships with local universities to provide training programmes on ethical content creation for tertiary students. By strengthening the content talent pipeline for the future communication leaders of Malaysia, we aim to create a more responsible content space from the ground up.

Additionally, we note that a bulk of the complaints made to us over the years have been reports of harmful or misleading content and comments posted to social media. Given that the social media space tends to be driven by young people, we agree with YB Hannah Yeoh that more needs to be done to cultivate ethical and responsible digital spaces for all.

“To this end, we gladly welcome any opportunity to collaborate with the Ministry of Youth and Sports and the Ministry of Communications and Digital to further intensify our efforts at encouraging self-regulation and responsible social media use. By combining our pool of resources, we believe that we will move even closer to our shared goal of creating a conscientious digital populace,” Ong said.