ASEAN Regional Coalition to #StopDigitalDictatorship with 47.15% of them. In 2022, between January and the initial half of 2023, TikTok received 340 requests June, it received 27 requests and complied with 47.9% from the Malaysian government to remove or restrict of them. The second half of 2022 is characterised access to specific content, affecting approximately by 36 requests, with one additional request for the 890 posts and accounts, with the platform taking first half of 2023. action against 815 of them due to violations of local 94 In 2020, Tik Tok received 547 requests, 4156 in 2021, 5009 in 2022, and 4,083 requests in the first six months of 2023 (January to June).95 More specifically, during laws or its community guidelines.96 According to data from the Surfshark website, Malaysia has had a total of 1,208 account requests from Apple, Google, Meta, and Microsoft between 2013 and 2021.97 PANDEMIC POLITICS: COVID-19 IMPACT ON ONLINE ACTIVITIES The Government has used the COVID-19 pandemic as an opportunity to silence critics and adopt new repressive laws criminalising speech. In March 2021, the Emergency (Essential Powers) (No. 2) Ordinance98 was adopted, which establishes several criminal offences related to “fake news” about the pandemic, raising concerns about freedom of expression in Malaysia. The Ordinance follows the structure of the 2018 Anti-Fake News Act which had been repealed in 2019, and many provisions are identical to those in the Act. It subjects anyone who creates, publishes, distributes, or disseminates “fake news,” “with intent to cause, or which is likely to cause fear or alarm to the public, or to any section of the public” to a RM 100,000 fine, three years of jail, or both. There has been a steady stream of arrests and detention for online speech, many of them conducted without a warrant, including for social media criticism of government policies related to insufficient screening procedures or a lack of government preparedness. Additionally, internet service providers (ISPs) and digital platforms have been compelled by the authorities to facilitate censorship and surveillance or otherwise face harsh penalties. For instance, in the first half of 2020, Twitter restricted access to 190 items pertaining to COVID-19 misinformation, following the government’s requests.99 The state of emergency lasted until Aug. 1, 2021.100 While the government claimed that the Ordinance is imperative for combating disinformation about the 166 COVID-19 pandemic,101 it fails to establish a standard for what constitutes falseness, rendering it prone to misuse. In December 2021, the Senate approved a motion to revoke a string of Emergency Ordinances, including the Emergency (Essential Powers) (No. 2) Ordinance. 102 A report by Amnesty International shows that Malaysia’s crackdown on human rights defenders, journalists, opposition members, and activists has continued through the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting state of emergency in 2021.103 In May 2020, Tashny Sukumaran, a South China Morning Post correspondent, was questioned and summoned to a police station in Kuala Lumpur after co-writing an online article about raids targeting migrants and refugees during the pandemic. She is being investigated under Section 504 of the Penal Code, for “intentional insult with intent to provoke a breach of the peace,” and under Section 233 of the CMA.104 In July 2021, the Malaysian police summoned for questioning Boo-Su Lyn, Editor-in-Chief of healthcare news outlet CodeBlue and socio-political activist, after she published an article about a COVID-19 outbreak at a local vaccination centre.105 In February 2022, graphic designer Fahmi Reza was charged under Section 233 of the Communications and Multimedia Act after he made a satirical post about the Minister’s decision to shorten the quarantine period for Cabinet ministers returning from official visits abroad.106 Dawn of Digital Dictatorship: Weaponizing the Law Against Online Speech in Southeast Asia