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Published in:
Complexities in Falsehoods Management and Implications for Research and Practice Read chapter Read first chapter

2023 | OriginalPaper | Chapter

12. Regulating Online Pandemic Falsehoods: Practices and Interventions in Southeast Asia

Authors : Netina Tan, Rebecca Lynn Denyer

Published in: Mobile Communication and Online Falsehoods in Asia

Publisher: Springer Netherlands

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Abstract

Online falsehoods proliferated with the outbreak of COVID-19, leading to conspiracy theories and vaccine hesitancy in Southeast Asia. In this chapter, we investigate the effects and enforcement of falsehood regulations on the democratic freedoms in nine countries. Broadly, we compare (1) the laws governing online falsehoods on mobile instant messaging services (MIMS) platforms and other social media; (2) the forms of enforcement across the region based on V-Dem’s Pandemic Backsliding Index, Digital Society Index (DSI), human rights reports and news media agencies. Specifically, we also compare how the respective governments in (3) Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand enforced online pandemic falsehood regulations. Our findings show that while laws governing online falsehoods are necessary interventions to minimise distrust of public health information, abuses occur when vaguely defined laws obfuscate and authorities interpret and enforce laws in discriminatory ways. If left unchecked, the arbitrary expansion of the state’s policing power is likely to lead to democratic backsliding in the post-pandemic era.

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previous chapter Fact Checking Chatbot: A Misinformation Intervention for Instant Messaging Apps and an Analysis of Trust in the Fact Checkers
next chapter Countering Fake News on WhatsApp in Malaysia: Current Practices, Future Initiatives and Challenges Ahead
Appendix
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Footnotes
1
90 countries (55 per cent) have passed laws or taken actions to restrict freedom of expression during the pandemic, often justifying such actions as a necessary way to combat disinformation about the virus, defined as an “infodemic” by the World Health Organization (WHO) (IDEA, 2021, 21).
 
2
18 countries had imposed fines for the spread of disinformation on COVID-19 (Edgell et al., 2021).
 
3
Following Wardle, content that is false but not intended to cause harm is referred to as “misinformation”, while the same type of content that is intended to cause harm will be considered “disinformation”. Truthful information that is aimed at causing harm is called “malinformation” (2017). For the purpose of this chapter, we use the term “online falsehoods” to refer to all cases of misinformation, disinformation and malinformation when appropriate.
 
4
Their findings suggest that the more false information spread, such as messages downplaying the potential dangers of COVID-19 or the effectiveness of mask-wearing and social distancing, the more the case count increased (Kong et al., 2021).
 
5
Brunei and East Timor are excluded due to lack of comparable information.
 
6
Others includes President Widodo’s withholding of information from the people by concealing daily infections and including large state-owned enterprises and private companies to manufacture rapid testing which produced hundreds of false negatives and false positives (Al Jazeera, 2020).
 
7
The DSI data based upon survey responses from multiple country experts and measures variables related to the intersection between the internet and politics on a global scale. Higher values corresponded to greater levels of digital repression (Valeriya et al., 2021).
 
8
The scores are tabulated over a period of twenty years and countries are then given a score that typically falls from –5 to 5, with 0 representing “extremely comprehensive” where the government surveils virtually all the content on social media and score of 4 to “not at all, or almost not at all” where government does not surveil political content on social media. See p. 19 of code book (Valeriya et al., 2021).
 
9
The score of 1 refers to the government blocking all social media platforms while the score of 4 means that the government does not censor political social media content (Valeriya et al., 2021).
 
10
The Decree stated that sharing of false information with the intent to “instigate fear among the people, or intentionally distort information which causes misunderstanding of the emergency situation to the extent of affecting the public order or good moral of the people”. Violations of policy would result in a fine of up to THB 40,000 and/or an imprisonment of up to two years—one of the harshest in the region (Office of the Prime Minister, 2020).
 
11
Under Article 14 of the Computer Crime Act (CCA), citizens can be prosecuted for offences that are “likely to cause damage to the public”. This includes “false or partially false” information, “distorted or partially distorted” information and any information that has the potential to “cause public panic” or bring harm to the state (Human Rights Watch, 2016).
 
12
Thailand’s 2020–2021 Free Youth Movement included demands for a strengthening of democracy and critiques of the country’s government. Activists organised protests on college and university campuses across Thailand and developed a social media campaign under the hashtag #FreeYouth (Sinpeng, 2021).
 
13
Penalties for non-compliance by ESOs include financial penalties and service shutdown within Indonesia, where ESOs are expected to remove online content deemed to violate laws within 24 h (Asia Watch, 2021).
 
14
Penalties include fines of up to 100,000 Malaysian ringgit and/or a three-year prison term, with a daily fine of 1,000 ringgit for repeat offenders (Al Jazeera, 2021).
 
Literature
Bollyky, T. J., Hulland, E. N., Barber, R. M., Collins, J. K., Kiernan, S., Moses, M., Pigott, D. M., et al. (2022). Pandemic preparedness and COVID-19: An exploratory analysis of infection and fatality rates, and contextual factors associated with preparedness in 177 countries, from Jan 1, 2020, to Sept 30, 2021. The Lancet, 399(10334), 1489–1512. https://​doi.​org/​10.​1016/​S0140-6736(22)00172-6CrossRef
Metadata
Title
Regulating Online Pandemic Falsehoods: Practices and Interventions in Southeast Asia
Authors
Netina Tan
Rebecca Lynn Denyer
Copyright Year
2023
Publisher
Springer Netherlands
Book
Mobile Communication and Online Falsehoods in Asia

Print ISBN: 978-94-024-2224-5

Electronic ISBN: 978-94-024-2225-2

Copyright Year: 2023

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-024-2225-2_12