This special report investigates how ethno-religious conservative narratives attached themselves to Malaysia’s Urban Renewal Act (URA) debate on Facebook and Threads. Analysing more than 2,200 social media posts, the study finds that legitimate housing concerns over consent thresholds, compensation, and developer accountability were consistently reframed into narratives of Malay/Bumiputera territorial loss, political enemy-construction, and religious duty. The report closes with platform-specific recommendations for journalists, civil society, and PCVE practitioners to detect and disrupt this pattern before future policy flashpoints.
This research was conducted by INITIATE.MY, Cilisos Media, The Fourth Media, ReformMYMedia, and other independent researchers under the Indo-Pacific Media Resilience (IPMR) Program under Internews. The views expressed are those of the researchers and do not necessarily reflect the views of Internews or its partners..
