DEMOCRACY DISCONNECTED: SOCIAL MEDIA’S CAUSTIC INFLUENCE ON SOUTHEAST ASIA’S FRAGILE REPUBLICS Social media has not just been limited to stoking sectarian conflict between Buddhists and Muslims in the region, it has amplified other interreligious tensions as well. When Indonesian President Joko Widodo was running for office in 2014, he was the target of a smear campaign on social media that alleged he was of Chinese descent and a Christian, accusations that he sought to refute by posting his marriage certificate to Facebook and making a pilgrimage to Mecca just before the election.58 Subsequently, in late 2016, a video surfaced online in the run-up to Jakarta’s gubernatorial election in which the Chinese Christian incumbent, Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, commonly referred to as “Ahok,” appeared to be criticizing the Quran, sparking public outrage. He not only lost his re-election bid to a conservative Muslim candidate following a massive protest, but was also later sentenced to two years in jail for committing blasphemy.59 Although it was subsequently exposed that the individual responsible for uploading the video had edited the speech, during which Ahok was actually chastising his political opponents for citing a verse in the Quran to dissuade people from voting for him, rather than criticizing the holy book itself, the former governor remains imprisoned.60 As these examples illustrate, the use of social media to transmit willful disinformation, and often unintentional misinformation, has stirred longstanding schisms in intercommunal relations at the grassroots level throughout Southeast Asia. In many cases, individuals have harnessed the power of social media to amplify their xenophobic messages by seeding false information into an already complex and confusing information environment as a way of gaining support for their cause among those people least tolerant of living amid such ambiguity. As hate speech spreads and gains wider acceptance, it accelerates the erosion of already weak civil societies, marked by incessant intercommunal strife and underdeveloped institutions. Over time, this fragmentation of society may pose an existential threat to the integrity of the region’s most fragile democracies. Yet, in addition to this threat to democratization from below, social media increasingly poses a threat from above as well. Contrary to the expectations of many cyberutopians that online communication platforms would lend a voice to the masses and, therefore, disrupt the ability of powerful figures to consolidate political control, some of the region’s leaders have actually found ways to appropriate such tools to their advantage. In his book The Dictator’s Learning Curve, William Dobson argues that modern authoritarians have adapted to preserve their power amid growing pressures brought about, in large part, by technological change. Rather than relying on traditional forms of intimidation to maintain control, modern-day dictators are turning to more subtle coercion tactics. Key to this effort is the goal of keeping the public apathetic and uninvolved in political life.61 China offers a prime example of how the incessant information flows online can be harnessed in the pursuit of this end. https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/articles/2017-11-07/buddhist-nationalism-reaches-beyondmyanmar. 58 Paul Mozur and Mark Scott, “Fake News in U.S. Election? Elsewhere, That’s Nothing New,” The New York Times, November 17, 2016, https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/18/technology/fake-news-on-facebook-in-foreign-electionsthats-not-new.html?mcubz=0&_r=0. 59 Natashya Gutierrez, “How Facebook Has Affected ASEAN Democracies,” Rappler, November 11, 2017, https:// www.rappler.com/technology/social-media/187963-asean-democracy-impact-facebook. 60 Wahyudi Soeriaatmadja, “Man Who Uploaded Controversial Video of Ex-Jakarta Governor Ahok Sentenced to Jail,” The Straits Times, November 14, 2017, https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/se-asia/man-who-uploaded-controversialahok-video-sentenced-to-jail. 61 William J. Dobson, The Dictator’s Learning Curve: Inside the Global Battle for Democracy (New York: Doubleday, 2012). Foreign Policy at Brookings | 13