Since achieving national independence in 1957, Malaysia was ruled by a conservative multi-party coalition based on semi-competitive elections. Since 2018, when the opposition won for the first time in elections against the National Front government, political developments are very fluid with different governments and shifting coalitions under Prime Ministers Najib Razak (until 2018), Mahathir Mohamad (2018-2020), Muhyiddin Yassin (2020-2021), Ismail Sabri (2021-2022) and, after the latest November 2022 elections, Anwar Ibrahim.

According to V-Dem, Malaysia was in 2023 an electoral democracy (a "flawed democracy" according to the Economist Intelligence Unit), previously it was classified as electoral authoritarian. Among 179 countries, Malaysia is at rank 90 in the 2023 Liberal Democray Index of V-Dem. This medium level is also reflected in the country’s rank in the 2024 Press Freedom Index of Reporters without Borders (107 out of 180 countries), in the 2023 Rule of Law Index of the World Justice Forum (55 out of 142 countries) and in the 2023 Freedom on the Net Index of Freedom House (rank 61, “partly free”). According to Civicus, civic space in Malaysia is “obstructed.” In a highly polarized society and party system, governments tend to restrict freedom of expression.

Whereas in other countries laws and regulations against the spreading of false information of “fake news” are widely used, this is not the case in Malaysia. Paradoxically, the country was among the pioneers of introducing an Anti-Fake News Act in 2018 as an instrument to crack down on government critics. But the law was only used once and was abolished in late 2019. When the reformist Pakatan Harapan coalition fell and a conservative government again took over, it declared a state of emergency and introduced the Emergency (Essential Powers) (No. 2) Ordinance 2021, thereby banning “fake news” on Covid-19 or on the proclamation of the emergency. The ordinance was repealed later that year. Today, especially Section 233 of the Communications and Multimedia Act (CMA) 1998 as well as Section 505 of the Penal Code are used against spreaders of “fake news.”