Malaysian authorities have urged Facebook to remove nearly 250,000 advertisement pieces of content this year, largely linked to illegal gambling and fraud schemes.
Sports betting and online gambling are illegal in Malaysia, while only one casino license exists, alongside lotteries and horse racing.
The Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) indicated that, of the nearly 250,000 pieces it requested Facebook remove, some 172,072 were related to online gambling. About 56,100 pieces of content were linked to various scams, while the two combined represented about 92 percent of content that the authorities wanted to be taken down.
While the commission itself doesn’t have the authority to mandate the removal of the content, it has filed a request with the platform to do so.
The nation’s communications minister indicated that scams and ads related to illegal gambling caused losses of over $97 million for Malaysians last year.
