Malaysia Imposes Ban on Social Media for Children Under 16

Malaysia began enforcing its social media ban for children on Monday, requiring all social media platforms with 8 million or more users to implement age-verification systems that will prevent people under 16 from creating accounts.

Existing users below the age limit will be given a month to back up their data before their accounts are deleted.

Malaysia is the latest country to follow in the footsteps of Australia, which implemented the world’s first social media ban on children under 16 in December 2025. Turkey, Indonesia, parts of India, and Greece have all announced similar bans within the past two months. Most European countries have at least discussed an under-16 ban and many have plans to implement them over the coming year.

Malaysia announced its social media ban in November 2025, soon after a horrific knife attack by a 14-year-old boy against a 16-year-old girl was partly blamed on social media by police officials and Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim.

Government officials revealed on Monday that the ban will include fines of up to $2.5 million for social media platforms that violate the rules. There are currently no plans to impose penalties against parents or young users who violate the ban, only social media companies.

The nominal grace period for existing teenage users is one month, but the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission said it would take six months to fully roll out the age verification system, so corporate penalties will not be assessed until then.

Affected platforms will include Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. Facebook’s parent company Meta was especially critical of the ban, pointing out that there will be many ways for young people to evade it and some could be pushed into the darker corners of the Internet when they lose access to large platforms with over 8 million users.

Meta’s public policy director for Southeast Asia, Clara Koh, warned the ban could discriminate against “stateless individuals, undocumented residents, and members of marginalized communities including LGBTQ+ people who rely on anonymity online for safety.”

Another criticism is that imposing an age verification system will give both social media companies and the Malaysian government more access to personal information.

Malaysia began asking social media platforms with over 8 million users to register with the government and obtain licenses in January 2025. Several of the larger platforms, including Meta and X, declined to register voluntarily, so the licensing system was made mandatory under the new teen social media ban.