The Making of Misinformed Choice: Digital technologies in election cycles. Insights from nine countries in Asia.

Citizens’ ability to make informed choices is an essential prerequisite for democracy, but it is undermined by the spread of disinformation. Critically, citizens’ ability to make informed decisions is not hampered by a lack but by an overload of information. Reviewing the state of disinformation and countermeasures in nine (South)-East Asian countries, the authors form the Digital Asia Hub (Hong Kong) find digital disinformation to be rampant and underscore its contribution to democratic erosion. Government and civil society initiatives, sometimes supported by the private sector, attempt to counter this trend. Most countermeasures seek to boost media literacy, provide easily accessible fact checks, train journalists and garner intelligence on disinformation campaigns.

This report is part of an international research series conducted under the theme “strengthening democracy, countering disinformation”, commissioned and supported by the Upgrade Democracy team between 2023-2024.