Is internet freedom slipping away in Southeast Asia?

Internet freedoms have continued to decline in Southeast Asia, mirroring the region's ongoing shift away from democratic governance, according to a recent survey.

War-torn Myanmar ranked alongside China as the world's worst country for online freedom, marking the first time Beijing has shared the bottom spot in US-based Freedom House's annual "Freedom on the Net" report, released last week.  

The survey and analysis measures ways that governments and non-state actors restrict rights online. This includes blocking access, putting limits on content, and violations of the right to privacy along with legal and extralegal repercussions for online speech.

Thailand and Vietnam were among the bottom 20 countries, while Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia were rated as "partly free." No surveyed country in the region was classified as "free." 

Cambodia, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, and Singapore saw their scores decline in this year's report, while Thailand's and Vietnam's scores remained unchanged.

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

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

Vietnam and Myanmar also ranked near the bottom of Reporters Without Borders' latest World Press Freedom Index, while most Southeast Asian states, except for Timor-Leste, placed in the lower half of the table. 

Countries prioritize control over online spaces

"Few, if any, Southeast Asian governments even feign commitment to improving and protecting online freedoms these days," Shawn Crispin, the senior Southeast Asia representative for the Committee to Protect Journalists, told DW.   

"Even the region's nominally democratic states are putting priority on online control and regulation over promoting online freedoms," he added. "There is little good news, and plenty of bad, when it comes to the future of online freedom in the region."  

In March 2024, Indonesia introduced a law imposing fines on tech and social media companies that fail to remove content prohibited by the state. Other legislative efforts to restrict online speech stalled in parliament this year but could be revived under the country's new president, Prabowo Subianto, who took office last weekend. 

"Digital media repression is…an imminent threat to Indonesia's declining democracy," argued Sofie Syarief, a visiting fellow at the ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute, in an essay published this week. 

The recently published Reuters Institute's Digital News Report found that about four-fifths of Southeast Asians use social media as their main news source.  

"For many people across Asia, the internet is the canvas for expressing their thoughts and showcasing their lives, as well as their major source for news," Phil Robertson, the director of Asia Human Rights and Labour Advocates, told DW.  

"It is not surprising that the region's growing number of autocratic governments are increasingly using a full gamut of technological controls to control what people see and share online," he added.  

Service providers under pressure

Many Southeast Asian governments have effectively pressured internet service providers and social media giants into censoring content.

Vietnam was among the first in Asia to issue an ultimatum to internet companies like 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 tools of the Vietnamese authorities' censorship."  

The accusation came after Facebook's transparency report in 2020 from Vietnam revealed a 983% increase in content restrictions based on local laws, which criminalizes "propaganda against the Party and the State," compared to the previous period. 

Facebook, Southeast Asia's most popular social media platform, has 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 to censor content within hours of government instruction or face being blocked by local internet service providers. 

Starting next year, social media and internet messaging platforms operating in Malaysia will have to obtain an annual operating license, committing them to take down more content at the government's request, including religious content judged by a state body, or face hefty fines or bans. 

"For as long as governments exert control over the internet service providers and platforms like Meta, Google, and TikTok continue to follow government orders…the situation will continue to worsen," Robertson told DW. 

Liberty vs. security

Numerous civil society organizations have opposed the surge of new legislation aimed at curbing online freedoms in recent years, though few have been successful in halting these measures.

Advocates for stricter laws argue they are needed to combat "hate speech" and AI-generated deepfake videos. 

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

Additionally, the rise of vast scamming industries in the region has heightened government concerns. 

What is permissible online is a global issue that comes down to a choice between liberty and security.  

Critics argue Southeast Asia's less-than-democratic governments naturally favor the latter, as seemingly do large segments of the public.  

A Pew Research Centre survey found that most Southeast Asians believe they should be able to criticize the government in public.  

However, most respondents in Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, and Cambodia said social harmony is more important than the right to speak your opinion.

Only a majority of Thai and Vietnamese people thought they should be allowed to publicly speak their opinions even if it upset other people, the survey found.  

Edited by: Wesley Rahn