Being an expat means keeping your mouth shut online!

Having been an expat for more than 15 years now, I have seen firsthand how an individual’s rights differ greatly from country to country. When considering a move abroad it is crucial that you appreciate that your rights, freedom of expression and freedom of speech are likely to become restricted in some way.

Once you become an expat you need to be extremely careful about any comments you make on Websites, Forums and Social Media. Even the most innocent of comments can be misconstrued and used against you. Any seditious remarks can (and will) be noted by government agencies and potentially used against you. The last thing you want is your visa renewal being declined for no apparent reason or you suddenly end up getting deported!

Don’t get shot!

So you had a bad experience at a restaurant, hotel or other business and feel the need to vent your anger online? Don’t!
Most business owners are well connected and if you upset anyone in another country you can end up with a target on your back, seriously!

Avoid leaving bad reviews or sarcastic comments online – period! Simply do not comment. Giving no review is better than giving a bad one because you can still sleep at night. It is very unwise to upset the locals, especially if they are ‘well connected’.

Exercise online discretion

The same applies to Chat Rooms, Forums and all Social Media platforms. Keep you mouth shut and your opinions to yourself. Just because you have a cartoon profile image (or avatar) and use a fake name don’t think you are safe. Your ISP and the Platform you are using can easily determine who you are, what smartphone, tablet or computer you are using and where you are located.

Keep your opinions to yourself

In South East Asia countries have curtailed online freedoms under the guise of “anti-terrorism” and “cyber crime” by introducing laws that are ambiguous, open to wide interpretation and used to silence the masses. All of the countries of Southeast Asia currently sit in the bottom half of the World Press Freedom Index, with four – Brunei, Laos, Singapore and Vietnam – ranked below 150 in the 180-country list, and Myanmar expected to join them following its February 2020 coup.

In these countries, critical coverage is not formally banned but there is no presumption of the right to publish. In Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines and Thailand, for example, a theoretical commitment to freedom of expression is marred by restrictive legislation, intimidation and even the killing of journalists.

The media in Southeast Asia faces two problems – vaguely worded laws open to abuse and politically-motivated prosecutions and, in the absence of robust independent courts willing to challenge these governments, politicians have been able to pursue personal vendettas against publications and individuals with few limitations.

In both Malaysia and Singapore, for example, laws dating to the colonial period criminalize acts with a ‘seditious tendency’ or those likely to ‘excite disaffection against’ the government. Indeed, in Malaysia, these powers have been augmented by the 1988 Communications and Multimedia Act which bans the ‘improper use’ of network facilities while, in Singapore, the 2019 Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act empowers ministers to order websites to delete articles without a court order. Importantly, the vague language of ‘seditious’ and ‘improper’ in these cases allow prosecutors to define them at will.

Moreover, in Thailand, the authorities use laws of lèse-majesté to criminalize the ‘defamation or insult’ of the king while Indonesia’s Electronic Information and Transactions (ITE) Law bans online comments that  ‘violate decency…insult or defame, spread false news…[or] cause hatred’.

In the Philippines, too, the Criminal Code outlaws libel but without providing a definition of the crime while the directors of two news websites in Cambodia, TVFB and Rithysen, were jailed in 2020 after their reporting was deemed ‘incitement to cause chaos and harm social security’.

Politically-motivated prosecutions of media outlets have been a particular problem in both the Philippines and Cambodia. In 2017, the English-language, Cambodia Daily was forced to close by the government’s tax authorities following a sudden inspection after the publication of a number of articles critical of the government.

Similarly, in 2020, Maria Ressa, the founding editor of Philippine news website, Rappler, was convicted of libel for a story published eight years earlier, the verdict coming just weeks after the television network, ABS-CBN, had been forced off air after President Duterte accused its owners of violating rules on foreign control.

However, the most concerning attacks on freedom of speech have been physical attacks on journalists, where in the Philippines alone, 18 were killed over the last five years and four in 2020 alone.

You are being watched

Government efforts to restrict freedom of expression have been challenged by the growth of international social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp. However, most governments have introduced legislation to try to compel these companies to remove certain kinds of content, with many of these regulations having been introduced under the guise of protecting cybersecurity or guarding against ‘fake news’.

International social media companies have taken a stand in favour of freedom of expression in some cases by resisting pressure to censor posts in Myanmar, for example, but they have been obliged to comply with illiberal laws in places where governments have the power to block access to their sites or where local advertising streams make significant contributions to their income and are vulnerable to government pressure such as in Vietnam and Thailand.

Governments across Southeast Asia have little incentive to protect freedom of expression domestically. Human rights groups may exhort them to abide by international conventions but such appeals carry little weight in the absence of sanctions for non-compliance by the international community.

Furthermore, there are few resources available to defend freedom of expression across the region and many critical voices have chosen exile in order to speak more freely. Thailand, for example, has become a place where critics of illiberal regimes have found some sanctuary but, even here, certain speakers have been silenced.

The problem is deep. Without fully independent courts, even those countries with rules-based legal systems will fail to defend dissenting voices against politicians in power and, if there is no respect for the spirit of the law, it will not matter how carefully it’s drafted.

Until recently, respect for freedom of expression was often tied to agreements over aid, trade and investment with richer countries, notably those with Europe. But, more recently, this form of conditionality has become less powerful particularly with the rise of China as an alternative source of financial benefit without political strings attached.