Communications Minister Datuk Fahmi Fadzil has stressed that the government has no intention of controlling the media, saying it does not want to repeat approaches allegedly used under previous administrations.
Fahmi, who is also PKR information chief, said the current government viewed attempts to control or dictate media coverage as inappropriate and had no desire to adopt such practices.
“Are we going to repeat such injustices? Certainly not. We are not in the mood to control the media,” he said during his winding-up speech at the 2026 Keadilan National Congress here on Sunday.
He said the government would instead engage with media organisations in a proper and respectful manner if inaccurate information was found to have been published.
“If there is any inaccurate information, we will deal with the media in an orderly and respectful way and inform them that some changes need to be made,” he said.
Fahmi said this approach differed from what he described as the practice in the past, when media organisations were allegedly instructed on how certain matters should be reported.
He added that media practitioners themselves had acknowledged differences between the current situation and previous periods, particularly in how the government engages with the media.
Meanwhile, Fahmi said the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) had, as of Saturday, identified and taken down more than 8,410 fake accounts involved in issues related to the 3R — race, royalty and religion.
According to him, much of the content was designed to provoke emotions and relied on fake accounts made to appear as though they belonged to real individuals.
The government’s approach, he said, was therefore focused on addressing misinformation while maintaining a professional relationship with media organisations rather than imposing direct control over news coverage.
