Microsoft recently released results from the latest edition of its annual Civility, Safety, and Interactions Online study which includes a metric that the company has formulated as the Digital Civility Index (DCI).

The study involved 16,000 people in 32 geographies with 500 of them were from Malaysia and this particular instalment of the survey was conducted from April to May 2020. Each participant was asked about their experiences and encounters with different online risks.

According to the results, Malaysia’s DCI score worsened from 59 in 2019 to 63 in 2020, indicating that more Malaysians are experiencing negative online interactions or encountering online risks and Microsoft has noted that this is Malaysia’s least favourable DCI score over the past five years.

So, what’s causing this? Microsoft said that the percentage of people facing hate speech; hoaxes, scams, and frauds; and discrimination online are at all-time highs. For example, in 2020, 4% more Malaysians encountered hoaxes, scams, and frauds than in the previous year, bringing the overall percentage up to 24% of Malaysian users.

You can refer to this infographic for more figures:

The fact that we have more scams around these days is pretty much confirmed by the news. Still, 37% of Malaysian respondents said online civility improved during the COVID-19 pandemic versus 17% who disagreed.

Also, Malaysia performed better in the survey as compared to much of the Asia Pacific (APAC) region. Our DCI score of 63 is better than the 66 attained by the APAC region as a whole.

(Source: Microsoft [1] [2]. Images: Microsoft.)