This article analyses the practice of state-operated fact-checking websites in Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand. It is the first empirical study of governmental news corrections in Southeast Asia and covers more than 2,700 official posts published by Malaysia’s Sebenarnya.my, Singapore’s Factually, and Thailand’s Anti-Fake News Center. It finds that correction practices across the sites mainly function to sustain the salience of a supposedly constant and omnipresent fake news threat. Assuming an important role in strategic political communication, official fact checks accompany domestic fake news discourses that prepare the ground for restrictive legislation. At the same time, the analysis did not reveal any propagandistic abuse as the sites refrained from excessively defending governments and accusing political opponents. This finding is qualified regarding Singapore’s Factually that recently changed its approach towards targeting government critics personally.

This article critically discusses the Thai criminal law applicable to online falsehoods, namely Section 14 para. 1(1) and (2) of the Act on Computer-Related Offences. Linking developments in Thailand to global and Southeast Asian fake news discourses, the article’s main part sheds light on several interpretational and constitutional complexities. Conflicting concepts of falsity and an uncertain ambit of protected interests are found to persist despite legislative amendments. As the right to freedom of expression in principle also protects false factual statements, recent constitutional jurisprudence on the principle of proportionality is applied to evaluate the prescribed level of criminal punishment. The article provides an in-depth analysis that contributes to the evolving scholarship on the challenges of regulatory responses to fake news.

In one of his final press releases, the former United Nations Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in Myanmar, Tomás Ojea Quintana, urged that greater attention be given to the further deterioration of the human rights situation in Rakhine State. He submitted that the discrimination and persecution against the Rohingya community in Rakhine could amount to crimes against humanity. In his final report, prior to the end of his six-year mandate, Quintana states that “extrajudicial killing, rape, and other forms of sexual violence, arbitrary detention, torture, and ill-treatment in detention, denial of due process and fair trial rights, and the forcible transfer and severe deprivation of liberty of populations has taken place on a large scale and has been directed against” the Rohingya Muslim population in Rakhine State. However, there is no sign that any of the alleged crimes are being adequately investigated by the competent domestic authorities. Furthermore, the ICC does not have jurisdiction as Myanmar is not a State Party to the Rome Statute.

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