KULAI, Feb 28- The Ministry of Communications takes seriously the existence of fake social media accounts that are becoming more prevalent in this country, especially involving famous figures, to attract the public to join online fraud syndicates.

Deputy Minister of Communications Teo Nie Ching said that although the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) provided a URL link to the social media platform provider Meta to assist in taking down the fake account, this has not yet been able to curb the issue.

"Actually, this is a big challenge for the ministry and MCMC, especially curbing fake accounts created for a specific agenda."

"We see that this trend is very unhealthy because now, not only the Yang di-Pertuan Agong is affected, but also the Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim," she said at a press conference after officiating the Closing Ceremony of Future Health 4 All at Dewan Raya Putra Kulai here.

In the meantime, the ministry is also disappointed following the lack of action from Meta in curbing the existence of fake accounts that end up ensnaring the community.

In addition, Teo said the screening of ads on the Meta platform needs to be improved to prevent such incidents from happening again.

"So the ministry and MCMC are not happy about this because most of the content I mentioned earlier is a sponsored post on the platform."

"It means that fraudsters pay Meta to increase the delivery of the content to other users, especially those in Malaysia," she said.

Teo also urged the people of this country to use AIFA or 'Artificial Intelligence Fact-check Assistant' created by MCMC, to verify information online.

The application is among MCMC's approaches to build and shape the public's thinking to check every news or fact received, especially on online platforms, thus reducing the negative impact of false information spread.