Online Safety Act 2025 Explained | Regulating Harmful Content in Malaysia

As digital platforms evolve and AI makes content creation faster and more accessible than ever, the challenge of regulating harmful online content has become increasingly urgent. Malaysia has taken a significant step forward with the Online Safety Act 2025, which came into force on 1 January 2026, introducing a new framework aimed at improving safety and accountability in the digital space. In this episode of The Legal Insight Podcast, our Technology Practice Group Partners, Ong Johnson and Khai Yi Lo, join host Zach Shaw to unpack the fundamentals of this landmark legislation and what it means for companies, platforms, and users.  In this discussion, we explore: ✅ What the Online Safety Act 2025 is designed to achieve ✅ How it fits within Malaysia’s broader technology law ecosystem alongside the Cybersecurity Act 2024 and PDPA ✅ Which platforms and service providers the law applies to ✅ The extraterritorial reach of the Act and how overseas tech companies can still fall within its scope ✅ What qualifies as “harmful content” under the legislation 💡 As Malaysia continues to strengthen its digital governance framework, understanding how these laws interact will be increasingly important for technology companies, legal teams, and policymakers.