Corporate/M&A Update: The Online Safety Act 2025
The Online Safety Act 2025, which came into force on 1 January 2026, marks a significant change in Malaysia’s digital landscape. The Act shifts the responsibility in regulating harmful content to applications service providers ("ASPs") and content applications service providers ("CASPs") licensed under the Communications and Multimedia Act 1998.
Under this new framework, these service providers must implement safety measures to mitigate risk of exposure to nine categories of harmful content (including issuing guidelines to users and enabling reporting mechanisms for harmful content).
The Online Safety Act 2025 will also have to be read together with its regulations thereunder, which, amongst others, imposes response windows on the ASPs and CASPs to comply with their duties that include the requirement to acknowledge user reports within one hour from the time the report is received.
For more information, please click here to refer to the Online Safety Act 2025.
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