DEMOCRACY DISCONNECTED: SOCIAL MEDIA’S CAUSTIC INFLUENCE ON SOUTHEAST ASIA’S FRAGILE REPUBLICS increase of 50 million from 2015, more than 90 percent of whom access the internet on mobile phones.7 The rapid development of mobile telecommunications infrastructure in the region can largely be attributed to geography. In maritime countries such as the Philippines, Indonesia, and Malaysia, the prohibitively high cost of laying land lines across a disparate landmass has fueled the adoption of cellular towers and mobile devices. However, even for contiguous mainland countries, rugged terrain and remote populations have led to a leapfrogging of traditional wired connectivity in favor of cellular and satellite communications.8 Besides these topographic considerations, deregulation has also been a boon to the telecommunications industry. The liberalization of the rules governing commerce commensurate with political reform in several Southeast Asian countries has enabled foreign investors to gain a stake in an increasingly lucrative market. This phenomenon was especially dramatic in Myanmar following the nominally civilian government’s decision in 2014 to relax restrictions on the telecom industry, opening the door to outside investment.9 Whereas the country’s mobile penetration rate rivaled that of North Korea at the end of junta rule in 2011, it has since skyrocketed to over 100 percent of the population, a statistic accounted for by some individuals having multiple phones.10 This rapid expansion of the region’s cellular infrastructure would not have facilitated widespread internet usage had it not been for several key factors that have drastically reduced the costs of access for consumers. One of these elements has been a flood of cheap, low-end mobile devices (called feature phones) from manufacturers in China and South Korea that have put internet-enabled phones in the hands of relatively impoverished consumers in these still-developing countries.11 Even more noteworthy has been the drastic reduction in the price of the mobile SIM cards that are necessary to connect these devices to the cellular network. Again, Myanmar serves as a striking example of the effects of such developments. SIM cards, which once cost thousands of dollars to purchase prior to the beginning of the country’s transition to democratic rule in 2011, have since plummeted in price to under a couple of dollars.12 The same is true for countries across the region, where inexpensive prepaid SIM cards have poured into the market and are widely available for purchase.13 7 Rajan Anandan and Rohit Sipahimalani, “330 Million Internet Users Accelerating the Growth of Southeast Asia’s Internet Economy,” Google, December 12, 2017, https://www.blog.google/topics/google-asia/sea-internet-economy/. 8 “The Great Leap Forward: ASEAN’s Telecoms Market is Set to Boom as Mobile Overtakes Fixed Lines,” Spire Research & Consulting, https://www.spireresearch.com/spire-journal/2006-2/q3/the-great-leap-forward-aseanstelecoms-market-is-set-to-boom-as-mobile-overtakes-fixed-lines/. 9 Philip Heijmans, “Big Year for Myanmar Economic Reforms,” The Diplomat, January 28, 2014, https://thediplomat. com/2014/01/big-year-for-myanmar-economic-reforms/. 10   Motokazu Matsui, “Mobile Revolution Lifts Myanmar out of Telecom Time Warp,” Nikkei Asian Review, July 26, 2016, https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Trends/Mobile-revolution-lifts-Myanmar-out-of-telecom-time-warp?page=1; “DataBank – World Development Indicators: Myanmar,” The World Bank Group, http://databank.worldbank.org/data/ reports.aspx?source=2&country=MMR&series=&period=; “Digital in 2018 in Southeast Asia Part 1 – North-West,” We Are Social, https://www.slideshare.net/wearesocial/digital-in-2018-in-southeast-asia-part-1-northwest-86866386. 11 Business Insider Intelligence, “Opportunities Arise in Southeast Asian Smartphone Market,” Business Insider, September 2, 2016, http://www.businessinsider.com/opportunities-arise-in-southeast-asian-smartphonemarket-2016-9; Vindu Goel, “For Developing World, a Streamlined Facebook,” The New York Times, July 21, 2013, https://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/22/technology/for-developing-world-a-lightweight-facebook.html. 12 “Freedom on the Net 2017 – Country Profile: Myanmar,” Freedom House, https://freedomhouse.org/report/ freedom-net/2017/myanmar. 13 Tan Hui Yee, “Regional Govts Clamp Down on Prepaid SIM Cards,” The Straits Times, July 31, 2017, http://www. straitstimes.com/asia/se-asia/regional-govts-clamp-down-on-prepaid-sim-cards. Foreign Policy at Brookings | 5