Executive summary Executive summary In this report, ARTICLE 19 reviews the human rights context and responsibilities of tech companies operating in 3 authoritarian countries in Asia, namely China, Myanmar, and Vietnam. It focuses on the rights to freedom of expression and privacy, and the manner in which authoritarian states directly or indirectly expect companies to assist them in censoring content, promoting propaganda, accessing user data, and engaging in surveillance. While these are undoubtedly highly challenging contexts, companies have not sufficiently prioritised protecting human rights in their policies and actions. States are the primary duty bearers under international human rights law, but companies also have human rights responsibilities, as outlined in the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs). Even if domestic law or circumstances make it impossible for companies to fully meet their human rights responsibilities, they should take action so as to respect human rights standards to the greatest extent possible. Tech companies should not merely reference local law as an excuse for collaborating in rights violations. They should take steps such as those detailed in this report, like adopting appropriate policies, asking governments to justify content removal requests clearly and specifically, and reporting transparently on their compliance with government demands. For each country, we survey the country context and provide an overview of legal obligations which companies operate under that are problematic from the perspective of international human rights law and that may, as a result, put pressure on companies to become complicit in violations of the rights to freedom of expression and privacy. We then explore how Western tech companies operating in these countries, many of which have explicitly stated their commitment to respecting freedom of expression and privacy, have responded to these legal obligations and to other government expectations that they will cooperate in violations of these rights. In China, companies are expected to cooperate broadly in state censorship and surveillance, and to comply with other human-rights-abusive demands. Partly due to the problematic lack of transparency around internal decision-making, there is no way of knowing how these companies view the relationship between their corporate human rights responsibilities and local laws and policies that conflict with international human rights law. The situation is more mixed in Vietnam, where companies have experienced pressure but also have more space to challenge government demands. However, many companies seem to prioritise business interests and do not act consistently to protect human rights. In contrast, in Myanmar, after a brutal military regime took control in a 2021 coup, some companies refused to cooperate with the military, recognising it as an illegitimate government, and adopted Myanmar-specific policies. Follow-through on these policies has 3