Opportunities and Challenges in Southeast Asia, 2019 (Bangkok, Thailand) 21 What are digital spaces? In 1996, John Perry Barlow9 wrote a Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace, considering “cyberspace” as a global, borderless, free, and liberated social space that is formed of “transactions, relationships, and thought itself, arrayed like a standing wave in the web of our communications, [...] a world that is both everywhere and nowhere, [...] a world that all may enter without privilege or prejudice accorded by race, economic power, military force, or station of birth, [...] a world where anyone, anywhere may express his or her beliefs, no matter how singular, without fear of being coerced into silence or conformity.”10 The romantic and idealistic description of a brave new world free from powers that be and structural constraints is further from reality than ever in the mainstream online world of today. Instead, with the advent of social media, linking our virtual identities with our real world connections, digital spaces can be seen as some sort of “digital togetherness” (Marino, 2015) in which people can connect in social spaces online which are not bound by geographical or time limitations but ultimately be rooted within socio-political and cultural structures of the physical world. It would be good to be reminded at this juncture that not all digital spaces are online – for instance, one’s collection of electronic books in her e-book reader is within a digital space but may not be connected to the Internet. In digital spaces, rights, as outlined by the UDHR, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), should still stand or be modified to suit the specificities of the spaces afforded by new technologies. While freedom of expression online is often singled out as representative in the set of rights that must be protected in the digital space, it is only one of the many rights under the UDHR, and these rights should be viewed as a system and not be divisible (Joergensen & Marzouki, 2015). At a different level, the UDHR, while often cited, is only one of the frameworks to organise rights. Discussions in the regional focus group pointed out that there are other frameworks that can be used, based on social justice, democracy, or feminist principles (see the Feminist Principles of the Internet11), for instance. As each framework would have its own limitations, the diversity of frameworks is not seen as a problem but to contribute to the overall discussion of what digital rights are. It should be pointed out that digital spaces do not exist in a vacuum but are shaped by state and market forces. As expressed by respondents of the study, on one hand, Southeast Asians face challenges from the state, imposing draconian laws onto digital spaces. On the other hand, they are subjected to using online platforms which have community guidelines and moderation by tech companies which are culturally removed 9 10 11 John Perry Barlow was an American poet, essayist, and political activist. He co-founded the Electronic Frontiers Foundation, one of the first digital rights organisations, and served on its board of directors until his death in 2018. The declaration was written in response to the enactment of the Communications Decency Act in the US. Full text accessible at https://www.eff.org/cyberspace-independence. See https://feministinternet.org/en/principles.