Is internet freedom slipping away in Southeast Asia? – DV – 10/29/2024

Internet freedom in Southeast Asia continues to decline, reflecting the region’s ongoing retreat from democratic governance, according to a recent survey.

War-torn Myanmar has been ranked alongside China as the world’s worst country for internet freedom, marking the first time Beijing has tied for last place in US-based Freedom House’s annual online freedom rankings. reportreleased last week.

The survey and analysis assess how governments and non-state actors restrict rights online. This includes blocking access, restricting content and violations of privacy rights, as well as legal and extra-legal consequences for online speech.

Thailand and Vietnam were among the 20 worst performing countries, while Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia were rated as “partly free”. None of the countries surveyed in the region were classified as “free”.

In this year’s report, the figures for Cambodia, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines and Singapore fell, while the figures for Thailand and Vietnam remained unchanged.

Of the eight Southeast Asian countries surveyed, only Indonesia showed an improvement in its situation, with its rating rising from 47 to 49 out of 100 points.

These results are not surprising in a region that includes military-ruled Myanmar, communist-ruled Vietnam and Laos, and one-party states such as Cambodia and Singapore.

Vietnam and Myanmar also ranked bottom in Reporters Without Borders’ latest world press freedom rankings, while most Southeast Asian states, with the exception of Timor-Leste, ranked in the bottom half of the table.

Countries prioritize control over online spaces

“Few, if any, governments in Southeast Asia even feign a commitment to improving and protecting online freedoms these days,” Sean Crispin, senior Southeast Asia representative at the Committee to Protect Journalists, told DW.

“Even nominally democratic states in the region prioritize online control and regulation over promoting online freedoms,” he added. “When it comes to the future of online freedom in the region, there is little good news and a lot of bad news.”

In March 2024, Indonesia passed a law imposing fines on technology and social media companies that do not remove content banned by the government. Other legislative efforts to curb online speech have stalled in parliament this year but could be revived under the country’s new president, Prabowo Subianto, who took office over the weekend.

“Digital media repression is… an immediate threat to Indonesia’s flagging democracy,” argues Sophie Syarif, a visiting fellow at the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute, in an essay published this week.

A recently released digital news report from the Reuters Institute found that about four-fifths of Southeast Asians use social media as their main source of news.

“For many people in Asia, the Internet is a canvas for expressing their thoughts and showcasing their lives, as well as their main source of news,” Phil Robertson, director of Asia Human Rights and Labor Advocates, told DW.

“It is not surprising that a growing number of autocratic governments in the region are increasingly using a full range of technological controls to control what people see and share online,” he added.

Service providers under pressure

Governments in many Southeast Asian countries are putting effective pressure on internet service providers and social media giants to censor content.

Vietnam was one of the first in Asia to issue an ultimatum to internet companies such as Facebook: censor content deemed inappropriate or be banned. In 2020, Facebook’s local servers in Vietnam went offline for a month as a warning.

Later that year, Amnesty International accused Facebook and YouTube of “allowing themselves to become instruments of censorship by the Vietnamese authorities.”

The accusation comes after Facebook’s 2020 transparency report from Vietnam found a 983% increase in content restrictions based on local laws that criminalize “propaganda against the party and state” compared to the previous period.

Facebook, Southeast Asia’s most popular social network, also admitted to banning political content in other countries in the region, including Thailand and Singapore.

In 2022, Singapore passed a law similar to Vietnam’s requiring social media companies to censor content within hours of a government order or risk being blocked by local internet providers.

Starting next year, social media and internet messaging platforms operating in Malaysia will have to obtain a one-year operating license requiring them to remove more content when requested by the government, including religious content assessed by a government body, or face large fines or bans.

“As long as governments control ISPs and platforms like Meta, Google and TikTok continue to follow government orders… the situation will continue to get worse,” Robertson told DW.

Freedom vs Security

In recent years, numerous civil society organizations have spoken out against the surge in new laws aimed at restricting online freedom, although few have succeeded in stopping these measures.

Supporters of stricter laws say they are needed to combat “hate speech” and deepfake videos created by artificial intelligence.

Singapore is currently drafting legislation to ban deepfakes and other manipulated content from political candidates ahead of next year’s general elections.

Additionally, the rise of large-scale fraud industries in the region has heightened the government’s concerns.

What is acceptable on the Internet is a global issue that comes down to the choice between freedom and security.

Critics argue that undemocratic governments in Southeast Asia naturally favor the latter, as do large swaths of the public apparently.

A Pew Research Center poll found that a majority of Southeast Asians believe they should be able to publicly criticize the government.

However, the majority of respondents in Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia and Cambodia said social harmony was more important than the right to speak out.

The study found that only a majority of Thais and Vietnamese believe they should be allowed to express their opinions publicly, even if it upsets other people.

Editor: Wesley Rahn