KUALA LUMPUR: Communication and Digital Minister Fahmi Fadzil denied threatening his TikTok live viewers with police action for making insensitive remarks about him and the government.
During his two-hour live streaming on TikTok, he told the FMT that he was merely reminding his viewers not to make provocative remarks that touched on 3R-race, religion and royalty.
The Lembah Pantai MP told FMT he maintained the reminder he made about some of the comments viewers had posted during his live session yesterday.
"It's the same thing that (home minister) Saifuddin Nasution Ismail has said. I gave a reminder to everyone not to post incendiary 3R comments.
"When I'm doing my TikTok live at events, people often comment on 3R. I've raised on several occasions that social media users should not use 3R for political purposes," the portal reported him saying.
Earlier, MalaysiaNow reported that the minister was two hours into his live session before he told off his viewers for mocking him and questioning the unity government's policies.
Fahmi said he had observed many users making disparaging remarks every time he went live, and he was obligated to remind them that authorities may take action on such comments.
He said his comments were taken out of context by some quarters who published an article about it.
"I was acting within the law to warn those who were leaving provocative comments during my live (streaming)," he said.
Fahmi, in March, had said amendments to the Communications and Multimedia Act 1988 (Act 588) and the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission Act 1988 (Act 589) could help curb issues relating to 3R.
He also pointed out that the two Acts needed to be amended to suit the current technological advancement.