Malaysia bans under-16s from Facebook, TikTok and YouTube

Malaysia has begun enforcing new social media age verification rules under its Online Safety Act 2025, requiring all users to confirm their identities with government-issued documents and blocking children under 16 from creating accounts on major platforms with at least 8 million users, including Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and YouTube. The implementation follows violent incidents that authorities have attributed partly to social media and online gaming, including the stabbing death of a female classmate by a 14-year-old boy in October near Kuala Lumpur, which police linked to American school shootings, Japanese anime and gaming terminology. Platforms must verify both new and existing users through identification such as the national MyKad card, passport or MyDigital ID system, and reconfigure their algorithms to reduce exposure to harmful content. The regulations are being enforced through two complementary frameworks: the Child Protection Code, which mandates a safety-by-design approach, and the Risk Mitigation Code, which requires risk assessments, content governance and a content labelling mechanism. Platforms that fail to comply face fines of up to 10 million ringgit (approximately US$2.5 million), though the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission has stated it will grant a grace period for implementation. Paid advertising will be restricted to verified account holders. The move places Malaysia alongside Australia, which in December became the first country to require major platforms to remove accounts held by under-16s, and Indonesia, which enforced a similar ban targeting eight platforms in March affecting roughly 70 million children. Turkey and several European countries including Norway, Greece, France, Spain and Denmark are also developing similar restrictions. However, monitoring groups including Article 19 have urged Malaysia to withdraw the "blanket ban," warning that children should not be prohibited from accessing the digital world and that the measures do not address the root issues of social media companies' business models. Experts have also questioned the policy's effectiveness, noting that without penalties for parents, families can easily bypass the requirements by creating accounts for their children.