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Online Repression and Self-Censorship: Evidence from Southeast Asia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 April 2019

Elvin Ong Open the ORCID record for Elvin Ong [Opens in a new window]
Elvin Ong*
Affiliation:
Elvin Ong, Centre for Southeast Asia Research, Institute of Asian Research, School of Public Policy and Global Affairs, University of British Columbia, Canada
*
*Corresponding author. Email: elvin.ong@ubc.ca
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Abstract

Governments around the world have crafted new laws to threaten, arrest, prosecute and incarcerate online political activists. While the primary effect of online repression is to silence criticism and forestall collective action, a secondary effect is to induce self-censorship among the masses. Yet scant research examines how self-censorship works, nor discusses its implications for entrenching authoritarianism and encouraging democratic backsliding. This article proposes a simple expected utility model of self-censorship, arguing that citizens will more likely self-censor when the expected costs of online political expression outweigh its benefits. Analysing the fourth wave of the Asian Barometer survey of 10,216 respondents across eight Southeast Asian countries, I find that higher income politically engaged social media users are indeed less likely to express their political opinions. Additionally, this correlation holds in states where online repression is most severe, but is non-existent in countries where online repression is moderate or low.

Keywords

freedom of speechstate repressionautocratic legitimationdemocratic backslidingsocial mediaSoutheast Asia
Type
Article
Information
Government and Opposition , Volume 56 , Issue 1 , January 2021 , pp. 141 - 162
Copyright
Copyright © The Author 2019. Published by Government and Opposition Limited and Cambridge University Press

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