Curtailing Free Expression, Opinion and Information Online in Southeast Asia III. Employing legal frameworks which serve to abusively restrict freedom of expression, opinion and information online In Southeast Asia, legal frameworks have been systematically used and abused to control and restrict freedom of expression, opinion and information online. In some cases, existing laws which protect against defamation, sedition or national security have been used to prosecute or inappropriately regulate expression online just as they had been used to target offline expression in the past. More recently, such laws have been augmented or superseded by a new generation of laws and regulations governing telecommunications, cybersecurity and computer crimes that are tailored to target online expression and information. In both cases, criminal and administrative actions are often justified as necessary to protect individual dignity or national security, and draw a link between the spread of a “falsehood” online and its threat to such dignity or security, social stability and/or public order. These laws often conflate national or public security with the “security” of the ruling political regime or other powerful interests – who often draft, promulgate and execute, or influence the laws in the first place. Despite the justifications offered for enforcing these laws, they have, by and large, been misapplied and arbitrarily enforced to curtail a wide range of comment on matters of public interest, including expression of critical dissent. Defamation laws, which can serve a legitimate purpose to protect the rights and reputation of persons, have been used to clamp down on free expression and opinion in Myanmar, Thailand, Indonesia, Singapore and Philippines. Problematic lèse majesté laws aiming to protect the reputation of the monarchy have been expanded so as to be wielded against individuals in Thailand and Cambodia. Archaic laws written to protect against sedition have been used to muzzle political expression in Thailand, Myanmar, Malaysia, Brunei and Philippines under the guise of preventing “unrest and disaffection in society”. Abusive and overbroad laws advanced to protect ‘national security’ have been used to curtail freedom of expression and information in Vietnam, Laos and Myanmar. Contempt of court laws aiming to protect the authority of the judiciary have been misused to achieve the same effect in Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand. 39