Centre for Independent Journalism (CIJ) executive director Wathshlah Naidu said the Act needed provisions that would enable the Election Commission to punish offenders making hate speech or spreading other harmful content on the campaign trail.

She suggested amending Section 4A(1) of the Act, which only punishes promoting ill-will or hostility during campaigning, and Section 9, which touches on undue influence on voters.

“The offences of promoting feelings of ill will or hostility could be amended to include harmful narratives and hate speech,” she said at a press conference here today to explain recommendations made in CIJ’s social media monitoring report.

Wathshlah said the EC must provide clear guidelines to combat online hate speech during campaigning, pointing out that other countries had implemented strategies that were effective in curbing this.

“The guidelines (for political parties and candidates) may include a prohibition on spreading hate speech and disinformation.

“Guidelines must also be given to media organisations on how to deal with disinformation and hate speech,” she said after the launch of the report.

CIJ collaborated with the University of Nottingham Malaysia, Universiti Sains Malaysia and Universiti Malaysia Sabah in preparing the report.

They monitored a total of 99,563 unique messages across Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and TikTok between Oct 20, 2022 and Nov 26, 2022, for toxic narratives and hate speech revolving around the 3Rs (race, religion and royalty), gender, refugees and migrants.

Wathshlah also urged the EC to be more proactive during election campaigning periods by issuing advisories to the public whenever it encountered any form of content that was hateful.

Other recommendations in the report included getting political parties to draw up self-regulatory guidelines on harmful speech, incorporating digital literacy into the education syllabus, and asking news outlets to provide counter-narratives to combat messages touching on the 3Rs.