pandemic and elections. A concerning development is the hiring of freelancers to help disseminate disinformation on platforms. We also discuss the criticism that has been levelled at platforms for the way that they have responded to the problem of information disorder. POLICIES AND GOVERNANCE Companies have introduced certain policies to regulate the type of content that can be shared on their platforms. In the case of Facebook, these policies are explained under its community standards. On TikTok, it takes the form of community guidelines. These guidelines and standards outline the types of content that are not allowed on the relevant platform as well as the actions that will be taken in the event of content policy violations. Most companies have introduced policies that directly target information disorder. Examples would be Facebook’s policies against “inauthentic behaviour” and “false news” (Facebook 2021a; Facebook 2021b), Twitter’s “synthetic and manipulated media” policy (Twitter Help Center 2021), and TikTok’s and YouTube’s “misinformation” policies (YouTube Help 2021; TikTok 2020). However, we will not be describing these policies in detail, as it is outside the scope of this report. As an additional measure, TikTok has localized content moderation guidelines for individual SouthEast Asian countries by appointing local content moderators. The platform has also appointed a Safety Advisory Council for the Asia-Pacific region (Bettadapur 2020a; see also Oliver 2021). South Korean messaging app KakaoTalk has stated that it will impose temporary or permanent restrictions on users whose activities fall under the “prohibited activities” described in the Kakao Operation Policy. These include restrictions on messaging, posting, and chatroom use, or restrictions from using the platform at all (KakaoTalk 2021b). Some examples of “prohibited activities” include posting any content that “violates human dignity, incites violence, and instigates discrimination or prejudice due to reasons that include an individual’s place of origin (including country and region), race, appearance, disability or illness, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, and other factors associated with an individual’s identity”, uploading a posting “that is deemed false among [sic] any postings that have form of articles with name or title of press company,” and attempting to “steal and disseminate personal information” (KakaoTalk 2021a). I N FO R M ATI O N D I SO R D ER IN THE GLOBA L SOUTH REMOVING OR SUSPENDING CONTENT, ACCOUNTS, PAGES, OR GROUPS This is one of the most common actions taken by platforms to combat information disorder. Removals and suspensions sometimes occur as a result of requests made by government agencies, fact checkers, and other third-party organizations such as news agencies. One such example is when Facebook removed several pages and posts targeting Rohingya Muslim refugees in Malaysia after they Facebook removed several pages were flagged by Reuters in 2020 and posts targeting Rohingya Muslim (Latiff and Ananthalakshmi refugees in Malaysia after they were 2020). Similarly, Twitter removed flagged by Reuters in 2020 (Latiff 795 fake accounts targeting the West Papuan independence and Ananthalakshmi 2020). movement in Indonesia following an investigation by Bellingcat.5 Platforms have also made a concentrated effort to remove content that violates their own community guidelines and policies. Google and YouTube have taken down content following government requests in, for example, Singapore and Thailand. In 2017 the InfoCommunications Media Development Authority of Singapore requested the removal of a video entitled “Inside the Khilafah” from Google+. The authority claimed the video was produced by ISIS and advocated terrorism. The video was removed for violating Google+ content policy (Google Transparency Report 2021a). In 2020 the Thai government sent three requests regarding the removal of six technically manipulated (deepfake) YouTube videos of King Rama X, during which the content of the king’s public announcement was altered. These videos were taken down, as they violated YouTube’s community guidelines (Google Transparency Report 2021b). There have been other cases where platforms took down content backed by government figures and government entities. The banning of the Myanmar military (Tatmadaw) and all militarycontrolled state and media entities from Facebook and Instagram in late February 2021 was as a result of events stemming from the military coup which occurred on February 1, 2021 in Myanmar (Frankel 2021). Previously, Facebook had taken down a fake account network managed by President Rodrigo Duterte’s social media manager during his 2016 campaign in the Philippines. The accounts, on both Facebook and Instagram, elevated the candidate and attacked opponents (Gonzales 2019). Asia – 2 0 8