EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

• • Southeast Asian autocracies of Cambodia, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam have politicized vague definitions of “fake news” to justify diverse tactics of digital repression.

• • In these countries, what constitutes falseness in “fake news” has hardly been clearly articulated. The governments instead focus on the grave threats the dissemination of “fake news” could pose to national security, public disorder, or national prestige.

• • As the governments are vested with the power to bend the labelling of “fake news” to their will, they can criminalize those accused of circulating such information to safeguard public interests.

• • There are at least four methods by which the governments have tightened the screws on cyberspace under the banner of curbing “fake news”: (i) prosecute Internet users, journalists and dissidents in particular; (ii) pressure Internet Service Providers and social media platforms to block and remove content; (iii) expand and deepen social media monitoring; and (iv) shut down the Internet altogether.

• • All four countries have used “fake news” allegations to penalize critics. Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam are inclined to use such allegations to strong-arm tech companies into removing content at the behest of the governments. Thailand and Vietnam tend to exploit such allegations to beef up online surveillance. Myanmar is the only country that turns to Internet shutdowns.

• • The interplay between the methods of digital repression that exploit the pretext of cracking down on “fake news” and the manipulation of online discourse through the deployment of cyber troops would merit further research and in-depth examination.

The economic, political, strategic and cultural dynamism in Southeast Asia has gained added relevance in recent years with the spectacular rise of giant economies in East and South Asia. This has drawn greater attention to the region and to the enhanced role it now plays in international relations and global economics.

The sustained effort made by Southeast Asian nations since 1967 towards a peaceful and gradual integration of their economies has had indubitable success, and perhaps as a consequence of this, most of these countries are undergoing deep political and social changes domestically and are constructing innovative solutions to meet new international challenges. Big Power tensions continue to be played out in the neighbourhood despite the tradition of neutrality exercised by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

The Trends in Southeast Asia series acts as a platform for serious analyses by selected authors who are experts in their fields. It is aimed at encouraging policymakers and scholars to contemplate the diversity and dynamism of this exciting region.

INTRODUCTION

In mainland Southeast Asia, the governments of Cambodia, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam have been using the pretext of curbing “fake news” to control digital space. The phenomenon of “fake news” gained international traction in light of, among other things, the 2016 US elections and Brexit, in which false online information contributed to the rise of hate speech and extremism, political divides and the eroding of democracy. While these concerns are legitimate and have led to the implementation of various regulatory measures and content moderation policies, political leaders, especially autocratic ones, have found it useful to make policy responses to “fake news” as a means to stifle critics. This weaponizing of “fake news” allegations has served to tighten the regimes’ grip on information to the detriment of a healthy information environment.

In this article, we show how the regimes in Cambodia, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam have used vague definitions of “fake news” to justify diverse practices to suppress digital space. We focus on these four countries because their regime types are characteristically autocratic and have a propensity to intensify digital repression. According to the Varieties of Democracy Institute (V-Dem), Cambodia is an electoral autocracy, while Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam are identified as closed autocracies. Civil liberties in these four countries are severely constricted, all ranked by Freedom House as “not free”. As we shall see, these autocracies have employed diverse methods to narrow digital space. We highlight the governments’ increasing use of a “fake news” label to foster four main repressive tactics: legal persecution of users and platforms, content restriction, surveillance, and Internet shutdowns. Across the four autocracies studied, we observed at least four methods in which governments rely on the claim to curtail “fake news” to justify digital repression. First, in all four cases, the government uses the “fake news” claim to charge in court Internet users who have been critics of the regimes. Second, at least in Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam, the “fake news” threat provides a pretext for compelling Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and social media platforms to block and take down content unfavourable to these governments.

Executive Summary

• • Organized propaganda and public opinion manipulation are increasing in Indonesia’s cybersphere. Specifically, since 2019, there has been a marked rise of cyber troop campaigns that serve to mobilize public consensus for controversial government policies.

• • Cyber troop operations played a crucial role in three controversial events in which public opinion had been initially critical of the government policy at issue. These were, first, the revision of the Law on the Corruption Eradication Commission in September 2019; second, the launch of the New Normal policy during the COVID-19 pandemic in May 2020; and third, the passing of the Omnibus Law for Job Creation in October 2020. In all three cases, there is clear evidence of cyber troops manipulating public opinion in support of government policy.

• • In all three cases, the cyber troops manufactured consent by flooding social media with narratives that promoted the governing elite’s agenda, often using deceptive messages and disinformation that were amplified by numerous “buzzer” and “bot” accounts. Thereby they effectively drowned out oppositional discourses on social media and neutralized dissent, especially as mainstream media simultaneously echoed the cyber troops’ narratives.

• • The ever more systematic use of cyber troops—and the considerable resources spent on such operations—indicates increasing co-optation of Indonesia’s cybersphere for elite interests. This threatens to undermine the quality of public debate and democracy in Indonesia because cyber troop operations not only feed public opinion with disinformation but also prevent citizens from scrutinizing and evaluating the governing elite’s behaviour and policy-making processes, which further exacerbates Indonesia’s ongoing democratic regression.

Introduction

As the world’s third-largest democracy, Indonesia was once touted as a role model for democratization in Southeast Asia, especially after the reformist Joko Widodo (known as “Jokowi”) was elected president in 2014. However, recent studies show that Indonesia is becoming a “defective democracy”, following a series of “democratic setbacks” since the second half of Jokowi’s first term in office. A process of democratic regression has been deepening since, if not undergoing an all-out “authoritarian turn”. As Larry Diamond states, one of the key signs of democratic regression is a substantial decline of civil liberties. This has been apparent in Indonesia. In its 2020 Democracy Index, the Economist Intelligence Unit ranked Indonesia’s civil liberties among the worst in ASEAN (below Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand). Similarly, the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance found that the deterioration of civic space indicates democratic backsliding in Indonesia. As Wijayanto argues, a clear indicator of that are growing threats to media freedom.

Against this backdrop, we turn our attention to Indonesia’s digital public sphere, where signs of democratic regression are also becoming clear. While digital media have long been hailed for their democratizing potential—providing civil societies with new means for political expression and action—studies show that digital media are no less amenable to illiberal practices or authoritarian uses. Cybersurveillance, Internet censorship, online repression, and digital propaganda and manipulation have increased in recent years. This is also apparent in Southeast Asia, including Indonesia. Our research found evidence of cyber troops being deployed by powerful actors to mobilize consensus for elite agendas and to neutralize dissent. Democratic regression, then, appears to go hand in hand with the rise of “digital authoritarianism”, or the use of digital media to enable and enhance authoritarian governance.

Indonesia’s Narrowing Cybersphere

The manipulation of public opinion on the Internet occurs in the context of an increasingly narrowing digital public sphere. In Indonesia as elsewhere, the Internet was long believed to provide a free public space for civil society groups to realize their agendas, raise public awareness of power abuses, and fight for civil and political rights. However, in the last decade, Indonesia’s cybersphere has been subjected to stricter cyber controls and growing online repression, which threatens to curb citizens’ freedom of online expression.

The economic, political, strategic and cultural dynamism in Southeast Asia has gained added relevance in recent years with the spectacular rise of giant economies in East and South Asia. This has drawn greater attention to the region and to the enhanced role it now plays in international relations and global economics.

The sustained effort made by Southeast Asian nations since 1967 towards a peaceful and gradual integration of their economies has had indubitable success, and perhaps as a consequence of this, most of these countries are undergoing deep political and social changes domestically and are constructing innovative solutions to meet new international challenges. Big Power tensions continue to be played out in the neighbourhood despite the tradition of neutrality exercised by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

The Trends in Southeast Asia series acts as a platform for serious analyses by selected authors who are experts in their fields. It is aimed at encouraging policymakers and scholars to contemplate the diversity and dynamism of this exciting region.

THE EDITORS

Series Chairman:

Choi Shing Kwok

Series Editor:

Ooi Kee Beng

Editorial Committee:

Daljit Singh

Francis E. Hutchinson

Norshahril Saat

The economic, political, strategic and cultural dynamism in Southeast Asia has gained added relevance in recent years with the spectacular rise of giant economies in East and South Asia. This has drawn greater attention to the region and to the enhanced role it now plays in international relations and global economics.

The sustained effort made by Southeast Asian nations since 1967 towards a peaceful and gradual integration of their economies has had indubitable success, and perhaps as a consequence of this, most of these countries are undergoing deep political and social changes domestically and are constructing innovative solutions to meet new international challenges. Big Power tensions continue to be played out in the neighbourhood despite the tradition of neutrality exercised by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

The Trends in Southeast Asia series acts as a platform for serious analyses by selected authors who are experts in their fields. It is aimed at encouraging policymakers and scholars to contemplate the diversity and dynamism of this exciting region.

THE EDITORS

Series Chairman:

Choi Shing Kwok

Series Editor:

Ooi Kee Beng

Editorial Committee:

Daljit Singh

Francis E. Hutchinson

Norshahril Saat

Executive Summary

• • Malaysia was initially lauded for its ability to combat the first few waves of COVID-19 but infection spikes since the Sabah state elections in September 2020 and subsequent exponential increases in both infections and deaths in 2021 left the nation reeling. Nationwide vaccination is seen as the only way out of the pandemic.

• • Malaysia’s COVID-19 communication strategy was hampered by political machinations and myriad changes in government. The need to shore up favour among the electorate resulted in inconsistent messaging and regular U-turns whenever there was public outrage at arbitrary restrictions. This resulted in confusion on the ground, preventing successful COVID-19 management and containment.

• • Under the current regime, claims to more accessible data have been disputed and doubts have surfaced over data transparency and accuracy. There is an urgent need to ensure convincingly reliable information, as well as to use more engaging messaging on more suitable media.

• • A holistic and effective COVID-19 communication strategy should adopt principles from several communication approaches, resulting in messages that are clear, simple and accessible as well as consistent and credible. Audiences should be segmented so that messages can be better tailored to their needs, with adequate information on the necessary steps to prevent infection and spread. Fake news, misinformation, and disinformation should be constantly tackled and debunked.

• • The Gerai OA and OA Lindungi Komuniti Facebook pages are outstanding examples of grassroots information dissemination channels that effectively provide fact-checked, coherent and accessible information to local communities in languages and on media best-suited to their audiences.

Malaysia first encountered COVID-19 in January 2020 and the crisis has now dragged on for almost two years. Initially lauded for the successful containment of the virus in early 2020, a combination of factors led to a sudden deterioration in conditions. In early 2021, there was a sudden escalation in infections and deaths which peaked in August. Today COVID-19 is being cautiously treated as “endemic” and the economy is slowly reopening given the decline in numbers since August 2021.

For a population of about 32.7 million, positive infection and death rates were relatively high. Total cumulative infections and deaths as at 4 December 2021 stood at 2,643,620 cases and 30,538 deaths respectively. Table 1 indicates the severity of Malaysia’s COVID-19 experience in comparison to several other countries.

The country with the closest population to Malaysia is Peru. However, while infection numbers there seem lower than that of Malaysia, deaths are higher. Within the immediate vicinity of Southeast Asia, Malaysia has the highest numbers in terms of deaths and infections. The other countries were cited for their international interest in the news given their high infections or citizens’ unrest in response to COVID-19 restrictions. Other sources note that Malaysia has the fourth highest death rate in Asia, after three Middle Eastern countries. For all of these countries, infection and death numbers are often underreported for myriad reasons.

The number of deaths in Malaysia in the month with the highest mortality (August 2021) alone stood at 7,640; 25.4 per cent of cumulative deaths throughout the 23-month pandemic period. Of the total cumulative deaths, 6,077 (20.2 per cent) were Brought in Dead (BID), meaning that they died outside of a healthcare facility. These figures and widespread images of army field hospitals set up across the country clearly indicate how overburdened the country’s healthcare system was over the worst of the pandemic period.

It is broadly understood that an “infodemic” accompanied COVID-19 pandemic woes worldwide. An “infodemic” is defined by the World Health Organization as “an over-abundance of information” that makes it difficult for people to discern fact from fake news, resulting in a lack of accurate knowledge of what to do in the coronavirus crisis. Within this spectrum of false information lies the notion of “disinformation” which is “deliberately propagated false information” and “misinformation” or “false information that may have been unintentionally propagated.”

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

• • Southeast Asia's Internet users are far more diverse than usually reported. They range from the urban youth with laptops and high-speed Wi-Fi, to the older generation semi-rural and rural users with affordable mobile phones for Facebook and WhatsApp.

• • Southeast Asians generally trust social media platforms more than in Western societies. This trust in social media reflects a lack of trust in local mainstream media and official sources of information.

• • What campaign information (and disinformation) is being spread and which ones are most successful are essential for understanding how voters in Southeast Asia use and trust social media.

• • Social media platforms and Southeast Asia's “app industry” need clearer and enforced regulation on their use of data and the extent to which they can sell data to advertisers. These advertisers include, but are not limited to, politicians and political parties.

• • Since the future of social media usage will likely lie in closed groups, the role of big data analyses that have dominated research on social media over the past ten years, is likely to regress. Instead, ethnographic scholars who can access these groups and engage with their particular interests and identities are more likely to be useful in understanding the digital sphere in the future.

INTRODUCTION

Southeast Asians with Internet access are ranked as some of the world's most ubiquitous users of social media platforms. Yet, it is true that in Southeast Asia as elsewhere, scholars, analysts and governments are still trying to understand how “the informational underpinning of democracy have eroded”. In this article, I assess the kinds of information society that are emerging in the digital public sphere in Southeast Asia. To comprehend social media's impact, we need to think more about the different ways through which citizens access the Internet, and the circumstances under which they engage with certain social media platforms. We also need to understand the historical and cultural backgrounds that shaped the way digitalization has entered the existing public sphere. Finally, we need to take note of the political context and reasons for the spread of digital media material. I examine these three aspects of social media adoption in three Southeast Asian countries—Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines.

SOUTHEAST ASIA's SHIFTING INFORMATION SOCIETY

There are some common mistakes that analysts make when writing about social media usage in Southeast Asia. The first mistake is overstating Internet access in the region. We often think of the “digital divide” as a clear distinction between those who have access to the Internet and those who have no access at all. In this frame, surveys show that some 64 per cent of Indonesians, 65 per cent of Filipinos and 75 per cent of Malaysians have regular access to the Internet. But these statistics are often beset with erroneous conclusions––for example, many citizens answer “yes” to having Facebook, but “no” to having Internet access when answering professional surveys. Some digital surveys, such as WeAreSocial, often only collect information on people who have Internet access. Others, such as AC Nielson, only examine responses from citizens in large cities where Internet signals are strong and where wealth is greater. These surveys only scratch the surface of the vast disparity in how Southeast Asians access the Internet. As Elizabeth Pisani wrote: “Millions of Indonesians are on US$2 a day and are on Facebook.” So the number could be skewed but more importantly, these percentages do not tell us the disparity within Internet usage. The millions of Southeast Asians “on the digital divide”, who have minimal access to the Internet, are generally understudied.

The economic, political, strategic and cultural dynamism in Southeast Asia has gained added relevance in recent years with the spectacular rise of giant economies in East and South Asia. This has drawn greater attention to the region and to the enhanced role it now plays in international relations and global economics.

The sustained effort made by Southeast Asian nations since 1967 towards a peaceful and gradual integration of their economies has had indubitable success, and perhaps as a consequence of this, most of these countries are undergoing deep political and social changes domestically and are constructing innovative solutions to meet new international challenges. Big Power tensions continue to be played out in the neighbourhood despite the tradition of neutrality exercised by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

The Trends in Southeast Asia series acts as a platform for serious analyses by selected authors who are experts in their fields. It is aimed at encouraging policymakers and scholars to contemplate the diversity and dynamism of this exciting region.

THE EDITORS

Series Chairman:

Series Editor:

Editorial Committee: