Digital Hate, Real-World Harm: Youth Radicalisation and Malaysia’s Legal Response

Malaysia’s digital landscape has expanded dramatically, with 97% internet penetration and youngsters spending nearly eight hours online daily. As a nation with a Malay-Muslim majority and sizable Chinese, Indian, and indigenous minorities, its multiracial and multireligious makeup heightens the sensitivity of online expression. While digital connectivity fosters communication and community, it also exposes youth to an alarming rise in hate speech, often masked as humour, political commentary, or ideological debate.

To address the problem, in December 2024, the Government amended Section 233 of the Communications and Multimedia Act (CMA) 1998, which regulates “improper use of network facilities or services.” The amendment, effective February 2025, replaced the vague term “offensive” with “grossly offensive” and introduced explanatory provisions, explicitly listing hate speech as a subcategory. While this was meant to tighten enforcement, the definition of hate speech as anything “insulting and demeaning” remains broad and vague. It risks penalising lawful expression while failing to address attacks on race, religion, or ethnicity. ARTICLE 19 has cautioned that such an approach falls short of international standards requiring restrictions to be precise, necessary, and legitimate; a concern I also raised when presenting preliminary findings at the 2024 Oxford Media Policy Summer Institute.

In Malaysia’s multiracial context, hate speech surrounding the “3R” issues: religion, royalty, and race, remains particularly sensitive, with studies and findings indicating its potential to escalate into extremism through mediums such as online gaming platforms. Racialised memes and jokes targeting ethnic or religious groups circulate widely on TikTok and X, especially during elections. Encrypted chats and gaming platforms have been misused to spread extremist ideas, raising concern from Malaysian authorities. Casual online prejudice can thus escalate into real-world radicalisation, as seen in the 2024 Ulu Tiram attack, where a youth radicalised by Islamic State (IS) content killed two police officers. Regional reports confirm this growing online radicalisation trend in Malaysia. My interviews with policymakers and youth leaders revealed how social, political, and cultural conditions fuel hate speech.

Senator Dr. Zulkifli Hasan, Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department (Religious Affairs), is both a policymaker and an academic, situating the rise of hate speech within anxieties over identity politics, regional disparities, and youth digitalisation, further intensified by socio-political polarisation. This mirrors regional trends where political rhetoric seeps into digital spaces and is adopted by youth through memes and coded language. Algorithms further exacerbate this, rewarding provocative speech with visibility and making hate messages appealing to young audiences seeking affirmation. He stressed that hate speech often reflects deeper societal divides: “When there is little meaningful interethnic engagement, young people become easy targets for divisive narratives.” To counter this, he advocates reviving Fiqh al-Muwatanah (jurisprudence of citizenship) and Fiqh al-Ta’ayush (jurisprudence of coexistence) as ethical, religiously grounded tools for fostering pluralism. Legally, Malaysia has relied on the Communications and Multimedia Act 1998, but these tools are reactive, punishing offenders rather than addressing root causes. He argued the greater challenge is building education and awareness initiatives that connect with young people’s online lives.

Adli Zakuan Zairakithnaini, Vice President of the Malaysian Islamic Youth Movement (ABIM), pointed to the politicisation of religion and ethnicity, manipulated by leaders with extremist inclinations, as a major driver of online hatred. He also stressed the global dimension: “Conflicts in Syria, Palestine, and Afghanistan resonate with young Muslims here, and that anger, if left unchecked, is channelled into extremist narratives.” For him, the decline of traditional family structures that once instilled civility leaves online peer culture to shape values, often destructively. ABIM has responded by promoting digital literacy, civic education, and religious literacy to equip youth to critically interrogate divisive content. Unlike purely punitive state approaches, ABIM’s deradicalisation programmes emphasise dialogue, mentorship, and community engagement. Success, he explained, is measured through gradual resilience-building, enabling youth to question and ultimately reject extremist narratives. He echoed Dr. Zulkifli’s view that laws must be complemented by community-based interventions uniting civil society, schools, and state agencies to foster a healthier digital environment.

The Malaysian experience demonstrates why Socio-Legal Studies are essential for understanding hate speech. As Merry reminds us, law is shaped by social practices and power relations rather than functioning independently. My Malaysian interviews reflect this; youth leaders emphasise how peer culture, weakened family structures, and global conflicts intensify the appeal of divisive narratives, while policymakers such as Zulkifli Hasan describe hate speech as simultaneously a legal and security problem rooted in deeper anxieties over identity politics and polarisation. These insights echo Matsuda’s claim that hate speech sustains systemic hierarchies, and resonate with Stremlau, McGeer, and Straub’s findings, which show that the impact and circulation of online hate speech are shaped by broader political, social, and cultural contexts rather than arising in isolation. The CMA amendment, while symbolically tightening definitions, risks overbreadth and may trail behind the social dynamics that normalise hostility through memes, humour, and algorithmic amplification. Situating Malaysia within this socio-legal perspective reveals that doctrinal reform alone is insufficient. The Rabat Plan of Action points toward a more holistic strategy, where legal boundaries are reinforced by education, dialogue, and resilience-building that address the deeper anxieties of identity, pluralism, and belonging in Malaysia’s digital sphere.