MITIGATING DISINFORMATION IN SOUTHEAST ASIAN ELECTIONS: LESSONS FROM INDONESIA, PHILIPPINES AND THAILAND
MITIGATING DISINFORMATION IN SOUTHEAST ASIAN ELECTIONS: LESSONS FROM INDONESIA, PHILIPPINES AND THAILAND

Author(s): Jonathan Corpus Ong, Ross Tapsell, Duncan McCargo, Thaweeporn Kummetha, Virot Ali, Sebastian Bay
Contributor(s): Anna Reynolds (Editor)
Subject(s): Politics / Political Sciences, Politics, Social Sciences, Economy, Media studies, Political Theory, Communication studies, Government/Political systems, Electoral systems, Politics and communication, ICT Information and Communications Technologies
Published by: NATO Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence
Keywords: Southeast Asian elections; Indonesia; Philippines; Thailand; Mitgating disinformation; Social media platform bans; Election integrity;
Summary/Abstract: In 2019, a series of elections in the Southeast Asian countries of Indonesia, the Philippines, and Thailand highlighted the salience of digital media in political campaigns and insidious modes of electoral manipulation. Despite new legal, technical, social, and educational efforts to mitigate “fake news,” our comparative research analysis of elections in the three countries observes that digital disinformation has become further entrenched in electoral processes. We observe that a wider range of political actors and parties enlisted a diversity of digital campaign specialists and paid out “buzzers” (Indonesia), “trolls” (Philippines), and “IOs (information operations)” (Thailand) to circulate manipulative narratives discrediting their political opponents. Some politicians even fanned the flames of religious (Indonesia/Thailand) and ethnic conflict (all three) in their communities in a desperate bid to score votes.

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