Is the Ismail Sabri government launching a cyberwarfare against its own people?

There has been thunderous silence for the last 24 hours from the Ismail Sabri government to the serious allegation by the tech giant Meta in its Quarterly Adversarial Threat Report which claimed that close to 1,000 Facebook and Instagram accounts as well as Facebook groups and pages have been removed for violating the platforms’ policy against coordinated inauthentic behaviour.

Meta said: “Such behaviour can be defined as the coordinated use of fake accounts to manipulate public debate for a strategic goal.”

In Malaysia, the report said 596 Facebook accounts, 180 pages, 11 groups and 72 Instagram accounts were removed for violating the policy.

“The individuals behind it ran a troll farm – a coordinated effort by co-located operators to corrupt or manipulate public discourse by using fake accounts and misleading people about who is behind them,” said Meta, which is Facebook’s parent company.

The report added that the network was active across the Internet, including Facebook, TikTok, Twitter and Instagram, and posted memes in Malay in support of the current government coalition, with claims of corruption among its critics.

“On Facebook, this network managed pages, including those posing as independent news entities, and promoted policies while criticising the opposition.

“Typically, their posting activity accelerated during weekdays, taking breaks for lunch. Their fake accounts were fairly under-developed and some of them used stolen profile pictures. Some of them were detected and disabled by our automated systems,” the company added.

Meta claimed that they have found the network after reviewing information about a small portion of this activity initially suspected to have originated in China by researchers at Clemson University.

“Although the people behind it attempted to conceal their identity and coordination, our investigation found links to the Royal Malaysia Police.”

The 24-hour silence is most ominous.

The government should be protecting Malaysians from cyberwarfare by irresponsible and unethical cybertroopers paid by those flushed with ill-gotten funds from financial scandals instead of launching a cyber warfare against its own citizens.

It is no credit whatsoever that Malaysia has been listed, together with seven other countries, namely Russia, Israel, Pakistan, India, South Africa, Greece and the Philippines for cyberwarfare, cyber espionage and Co-ordianted Inauthentic Behaviour (CIB) in cyberspace.

What is the Ismail Sabri government doing to ensure that Malaysia is not listed as a defaulting nation in the next Meta Quarterly Adversarial Threat Report?

The Ismail Sabri must break its silence and respond to the current Meta Quarterly Adversarial Threat Report.