Rising Misinformation Campaigns Target Rohingya Refugees in Malaysia

KUALA LUMPUR — A surge of political disinformation targeting Malaysia’s Rohingya population has alarmed rights groups, who say the falsehoods are fueling xenophobia and intimidation against the refugee community.

AFP fact-checkers have debunked a torrent of fabricated content on social media platforms, including fake quotes, doctored videos, and false statistics about the Muslim ethnic group. One Facebook post claiming a call for a Malaysian town to be handed over to refugees was generated by artificial intelligence, while another fabricated image allegedly showed Rohingya attacking Malaysians. False claims about two million babies born to Malay-Rohingya marriages were also disproved by official data.

Lilianne Fan, head of the Secretariat of the Malaysian Advisory Group on Myanmar, said refugees have become a proxy for wider anxieties about the economy, migration, and national identity. “Algorithms reward outrage over accuracy, allowing isolated incidents to be generalized to the entire Rohingya refugee population,” she said.

Malaysia hosts more than 215,000 refugees through the UNHCR, with over 126,000 Rohingya. Anti-Rohingya sentiment surged in May after social media posts accused them of dumping waste during Eid Al-Adha, sparking a petition calling for deportation that garnered nearly half a million signatures.

Malaysia’s human rights commission expressed deep concern over growing hostility, while NGOs report community members are hesitant to seek support for fear of online abuse. Malaysia is not a signatory to the Refugee Convention and does not officially recognize refugee status, though Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim has said the government will engage through ASEAN to resolve the issue.

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