The Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) blocked 5,044 websites for various offences under the Communications and Multimedia Act 1998 since 2015 until October this year.

Deputy Communications and Multimedia Minister Datuk Jailani Johari said, out of the total, 4,277 are pornographic websites that were offensive and threatened security while another 767 displayed elements of gambling, prostitution, fraud, piracy, counterfeit products, unregistered medicine and others.

"MCMC blocks all the websites based on the application of the enforcement agencies such as the police, Health Ministry, Domestic Trade, Cooperatives and Consumerism Ministry and other relevant agencies.

"Until last October, MCMC also blocked 72 websites related to the spread of Daesh ideology," he told the Dewan Negara sitting today.

MCMC had also investigated 181 cases of social media and Internet abuse involving the spread of false information and contents through the WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter plaform and so forth under the same Act.

Jailani said, out of the total, six cases were brought to court, including five cases that were prosecuted while 10 cases were compounded.

He was replying to a supplementary question from Ramli Shariff who wanted to know the number of offences made via the use of Internet and dissemination of information through the social media.

Speaking to reporters at the Parliament lobby later, he said the ministry through MCMC has introduced the parental control tool application to enable parents to monitor and filter the Internet contents being accessed by their children.

"This application encourages parents to be involved in the process of monitoring and filtering the websites surfed by their children," he said.

He said the application was among the programmes under the 'Click Wisely' campaign campaign which was also introduced to school children to create awareness on issues related to the cyber world. - BERNAMA