Knowledge Hub’s First Session on Mapping the Landscape of Tech Abuse in Malaysia 

Kuala Lumpur, 21 March 2025 – INITIATE.MY held the first session of its Knowledge Hub project, titled “Mapping the Landscape of Tech Abuse in Malaysia,” to address rising technology-facilitated abuse. First launched during the Luminate Foundation Convening in November 2024, the Knowledge Hub is a collaborative initiative led by 15 expert practitioners from Malaysian civil society organisations (CSOs). It aims to strengthen CSO capacity to understand and respond to digital threats through collaborative learning and evidence-based approaches.

The first session brought together 20 participants from diverse CSOs working in civil and political rights, counter-extremism, gender advocacy, and child protection. It aimed to build collective understanding of tech abuse and map emerging digital threats that endanger both civil society work and broader at-risk communities in Malaysia.

During the session, participants discussed several things:

1. The role of state and corporate actors in manipulating public opinion and repressing civil society through online platforms. This includes mining personal data to deliver targeted political propaganda aimed at influencing electoral outcomes. They also use pseudo-news portals and private chat channels to conduct doxxing campaigns against civil society organisations and human rights defenders. These actions have had real-life consequences, undermining both civic participation and democratic space.
2. The tactics and spread of radicalising narratives online, particularly those rooted in ethnoreligious supremacy and anti-minority ideologies. Participants examined how actors use social media and generative AI to increase reach and simulate organic engagement. These narratives have contributed to offline consequences, including violence. Many of these messages evade platform enforcement due to their indirect or coded language, raising concerns about the effectiveness of both AI and human content moderation.
3. The rise of anti-rights and anti-gender narratives, fuelled by the global surge of far-right politics and disinformation strategies that are now being localised in Malaysia. Participants noted how these narratives promote prejudice and restrict rights, especially targeting women and LGBTQ+ communities.
4. The growing threat of online child sexual exploitation and abuse (OCSEA), including grooming through digital platforms. Participants highlighted the gaps in legal protections and policy frameworks, stressing the urgent need to centre children’s safety in both digital governance and law reform efforts.

In breakout discussions, participants proposed tools to monitor and document tech abuse threats, recommending Bayanat and HURIDOCS for data collection and classification, and Newsgraphy for visual storytelling. They identified urgent threats such as coordinated disinformation campaigns, AI-generated sexual abuse content, and the spread of dangerous narratives across digital platforms.

The Knowledge Hub will continue to build on these efforts through upcoming sessions, an online repository, a policy paper, and a practical toolkit. The next session will focus on data-driven advocacy, offering hands-on skills in real-time monitoring, OSINT techniques, data collection, and ethical practices for evidence-based advocacy.