COMMUNICATIONS Minister Fahmi Fadzil found himself in the grilling pan by netizens after he attempted to deflect the much-criticised new licensing laws for social media operators by justifying that Malaysians lost more than RM1 bil due to scams on various social media platforms last year.

The Pantai MP further stressed that the supervisory framework which is mandatory for social media platforms with at least eight million registered users in Malaysia can also curb incidences of cyber bullying given “no less than 10 cases are reported every day”.

Even then, many learned netizens are adamant that Fahmi’s argument does not hold water given banks know precisely in which accounts are the ill-gotten proceeds from online scams are deposited, hence can always work hand-in-hand with the police to go after the mastermind by just following the money trail.

“Until and unless the banks are made partly responsible and punished, scammers will continue scamming and this (the ordeal) will never end,” reacted one netizen to Fahmi’s post on the X platform.

Moreover, as more netizens reasoned, it is no rocket science that “the gatekeepers are the bankers”, for the victims are made to transfer their monies to the scammers’ bank account, hence “any new enforcement should be focused on them (banks)”.

Then there is the slow reaction from the police with one netizen wondering why despite banks having furnished many suspicious transaction reports (STRs) to the cops, very few scammers are nabbed.

To this question, one netizen shared from his conversation with the police during the latter’s cordial neighbourhood call that “there is a dearth of acts/laws that prevented the authorities from obtaining personal data from banks/telcos”.

As a few netizens pointed out, scams do not emanate from social media platforms per se but also via phone calls, hence the need for the authorities to also rope in the telcos to trace the identity of the culprits.

This is when the “registration for mobile numbers with identity cards (IC)” comes in handy yet why is it so difficult to trace the scammers even after victims have transferred their money to the bank account of the scammers?

Whether it is human complacency or legal inadequacies, netizens express doubt that learning from past experiences, the latest licensing of social media platform would entail a similar result, hence it would be better for Fahmi to admit that the Madani government just “wanna control and shut up the people”.

Few netizens also highlight concern that scam calls are getting rampant in recent times while enforcement is lax “with MCMC (Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission) seemingly powerless to stop them”.

Henceforth, the RM1 mil questions is “if one can’t stop basic phone scammers who are already registered, how the hell is one going to stop social media abuse?” - July 31, 2024

https://focusmalaysia.my/netizens-tick-off-fahmi-fadzil-blame-banks-telcos-for-scams-frauds-instead-of-social-media-platforms/