[Rightscon 2025 Taipei] SEACPN on Content Moderation

This Rightscon session is continuation by Southeast Asian Collaborative Policy Network (SEACPN), a network of 14 civil society organizations including Open Net, from the three public events at DRAPAC 2023 Chiang Mai https://www.opennetkorea.org/en/wp/4720, APrIGF 2023 Brisbane https://www.opennetkorea.org/en/wp/5022, 3rd Summit for Democracy https://www.opennetkorea.org/en/wp/5527 in March 2024 to discuss the need for a regional CSO-tech alliance in better content moderation. 

Civil society and digital rights organizations established the South East Asia Collaborative Policy Network (SEA CPN) in 2023 to share experiences and strategies to promote internet freedom by developing the capacity of CSOs to engage with ICT companies (tech companies, ISPs and telcos), governments and ASEAN. We would like to open up collaborations with RightsCon participants. Online administrative censorship is on the rise in Southeast Asia. Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand, and Indonesia implemented mandatory “notice-and-takedown” systems where criminal/civil liability is imposed on intermediaries for failure to take down or block websites when government agencies make the requests. We would like to discuss how we can work with tech actors to push back on censorship orders not complying with international human rights standards.

At the same time, social media trolls, often aligned with the ruling elites, are attacking vulnerable groups to shrink the latter’s freedom of speech, making it difficult to achieve substantive democracy. We would like to discuss how we can work with social media platforms in moderating these harmful contents to promote democracy. Current approaches to dealing with “hate speech” are not sufficient to protect human rights defenders and other vulnerable groups as content forcefully revealing and defaming HRDs can come in various formats. Civil society and big tech need to discuss more openly to develop effective moderation standards while also pushing back against censorship, especially with the proliferation of disinformation and harmful content in relation to the 2024 and 2025 elections in Indonesia, Taiwan, Malaysia and the Philippines.

Host institution: South East Asia Collaborative Policy Network (SEA CPN)

Notes from the meeting:

• Philippines does not have laws holding platforms liable and many pro-government trolls are using the loophole to engage “red tagging” which results in much violence and terror against human rights defenders and journalists.
• Indonesia has oppressive laws on online takedowns and they are used to suppress mass protests. Platforms did act faster upon the postings identified by trusted flaggers but such collaboration works well only on those issues such as child protection and other public-image-enhancing issues, and not on public policy related takedowns.
• Vietnam seems freer than China on surface but is a war zone online because by large measure the internet is the only remaining civic space for Vietnamese people and also much SME commercial activity take place on Facebook and Google. Cybersecurity Law of 2018, aiming to target foreign tech companies, is threatening to shrink the space. Another problem is pro-government trolls and we need to engage big techs to point out those trolls.
• ASEAN information ministers have met to minimize harmful effects of fake news but no binding guideline. Forum Asia has collected 190 cases of fake news with negative effects.
• Big techs should not avoid their content moderation duties. Meta seems to have stopped fact-checking maybe in order to avoid their obligations so they can strengthen their immunity under Communication Decency Act.