Furthermore, accounts connected to the Royal Thai Army (RTA) were suspended by Twitter in 2020. The accounts promoted content in favor of the government and the RTA while targeting highprofile people in the political opposition (Twitter Safety 2020). It is harder for direct messaging platforms to employ the same measures to track and identify mis- or disinformation, due to the private nature of direct messages. However, there have been a few situations where action was taken against controversial content. South Korea’s KakaoTalk has been known to take action when users report criminal activities (Jun-suk 2019). Telegram has also made some attempts to regulate questionable content by disabling certain groups when detecting, for example, pornography or religious extremism. It will typically give the group administrators time to rectify the situation, after which the group will be reinstated (Guest, Firdaus, and Danan 2021). In 2017 the government of Indonesia partially blocked Telegram due to content linked to terrorism and radicalism. The founder of Telegram, Pavel Durov, met officials from the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology in Jakarta and pledged that Telegram would have a direct line with the government of Indonesia to address their requests, thereby speeding up the process. After this, the Indonesian government assented to lifting the ban (Reuters 2017). Furthermore, WhatsApp has stated that they regularly delete fake accounts in Indonesia (Potkin and Costa 2019). WORKING WITH FACT CHECKERS, CONTENT MODERATORS, AND OTHER THIRD PARTIES Asia is home to a vast variety of different cultures and languages. Dealing with information disorder is a difficult task, and when combined with the added challenge of understanding the local context of each country that platforms operate in, it becomes even more daunting. Consequently, platforms have taken measures to collaborate with certain third parties and, in particular, with fact checkers. In April 2018, Facebook announced a partnership with Rappler and VERA Files for a third-party factchecking program in the Philippines, which aimed to prevent false news from spreading on the social I N FO R M ATI O N D I SO R D ER IN THE GLOBA L SOUTH media platform. Rappler and VERA Files, which have been certified by the Poynter Institute’s nonpartisan IFCN, work as third-party fact checkers to review news stories on Facebook, check the facts involved, and rate the accuracy of the stories (Magsambol 2018). Similarly, in Malaysia, Facebook launched a third-party fact-checking program in partnership with Agence France-Presse (AFP) in June 2019 (Malay Mail 2019). These partnerships are part of Facebook’s global third-party fact-checking program, where​​ the social media giant partners with independent third-party fact checkers who are certified through the IFCN in order to fight the spread of mis- and disinformation and provide people with more reliable information. The program has since expanded to encompass more than sixty languages around the world, including several locations in Asia (Meta Journalism Project 2021). Sumon Rahman spoke about Facebook’s third-party factchecking program with us. He noted that Facebook had provided Fact Watch with training and with access to CrowdTangle, a tool which can be used to analyze content on the platform. CrowdTangle makes it easier for fact checkers to access and generate content (interview, 2021). In Taiwan, the direct messaging application LINE has taken measures to counteract mis- and disinformation by partnering with local fact-checking organizations. LINE has formed partnerships with the Taiwan Fact Check Center and Cofacts, which enabled it to create the program LINE Fact Checker. This allows users to report messages and inquire whether they are true or false (Deck and Elliott 2021). LINE Fact Checker is a part of LINE’s digital accountability project, which involves collaboration with both the government and third-party fact checkers (Lange and Lee 2020). One of the main challenges that other messaging platforms such as WhatsApp and Signal face when attempting to remove harmful content lies in the fact that these platforms are encrypted to protect the privacy of users. If implemented by other direct messaging platforms, a program like LINE Fact Checker would go a long way in circumventing the barrier raised by end-to-end encryption. WhatsApp has taken measures to check the flow of mis- and disinformation by providing contact numbers for the IFCN chatbot and local IFCN fact checkers who are collaborating with WhatsApp. This enables users to check information if they believe it to be inaccurate or suspicious. The numbers includes contact numbers for the Anti-Slander Society (Mafindo) in Indonesia; Asia – 2 0 9