DEMOCRACY DISCONNECTED: SOCIAL MEDIA’S CAUSTIC INFLUENCE ON SOUTHEAST ASIA’S FRAGILE REPUBLICS social media-influenced conflict in Southeast Asian countries also present a direct threat to the U.S. national interest. The detrimental effects of these conditions on fragile democracies along China’s periphery portend a weakening of Washington’s influence in this strategically important region, which is likely to have more far-reaching effects. To fully appreciate social media’s growing political clout in Southeast Asia, it is important to begin by exploring the peculiar combination of circumstances that have helped to facilitate its pervasiveness. The ubiquity of social media alone, however, does not account for its outsized role in influencing attitudes. It is, therefore, instructive to briefly examine the underlying psychological processes that have made social media a particularly persuasive form of communication. After gaining a better understanding of the interplay between human factors and our complex information ecosystem, it is then possible to more clearly see how individuals and groups in the region are leveraging this relationship to their advantage as they seek to drive national-level politics in a direction favorable to their interests. This study will conclude by extrapolating current trends to see how further technological developments may pose future threats to Southeast Asia’s still-developing democracies and what actions, if any, can be taken to mitigate the political vulnerabilities that are an inevitable byproduct of an increasingly interconnected global community. SOUTHEAST ASIA COMES ONLINE For several of Asia’s most economically developed, consolidated democracies, social media has proven itself in recent years to be a political mainstay. The power of social media was on full display in 2014 when students in Taiwan used various platforms to organize demonstrations in response to the rapid passage of a cross-Strait trade pact that culminated in a weeks-long occupation of the island’s legislature.3 The tactics employed in Taiwan’s “Sunflower Movement” served as a model for emulation by youth in Hong Kong several months later during pro-democracy demonstrations that garnered international attention.4 Similarly, social media platforms have been utilized to help organize massive anti-nuclear demonstrations in Japan and anti-corruption protests in South Korea.5 It is not surprising that technological tools have been widely adopted in these locations, which are among the most connected places on the planet.6 However, that social media has become such an influential force in many underdeveloped Southeast Asian countries marked by weak infrastructure seems, on its face, paradoxical. In fact, this impediment has actually provided fertile ground for the rapid development of mobile connectivity. Southeast Asia has witnessed remarkable growth in mobile internet usage in recent years and it is now poised to be the fastest growing internet market in the world through 2020. The region is estimated to have approximately 330 million internet users, an 3 Vincent Y. Chao, “How Technology Revolutionized Taiwan’s Sunflower Movement,” The Diplomat, April 15, 2014, https://thediplomat.com/2014/04/how-technology-revolutionized-taiwans-sunflower-movement. 4 Jeff Chu and Helsa Chan, “5 Ways Protesters Organized #OccupyCentral,” Fast Company, September 29, 2014, https://www.fastcompany.com/3036374/5-ways-protesters-organized-occupycentral. 5 Justin McCurry, “Japan’s Largest Anti-Nuke Protest in Decades,” Public Radio International, July 16, 2012, https:// www.pri.org/stories/2012-07-16/japans-largest-anti-nuke-protest-decades; Ha-Joon Chang, “South Koreans Worked a Democratic Miracle. Can They Do It Again?” The New York Times, September 14, 2017, https://www.nytimes. com/2017/09/14/opinion/south-korea-social-mobility.html. 6 “Measuring the Information Society Report 2017,” (Geneva: International Telecommunication Union, 2017), https:// www.itu.int/en/ITU-D/Statistics/Pages/publications/mis2017.aspx. 4 | Foreign Policy at Brookings