On 26 September, Indonesia was hit with yet another deadly earthquake, killing 37 people and damaging more than 6,000 houses. The country is one of the most disaster-prone in Southeast Asia and the world. Two weeks after the earthquake, however, news reports began emerging that Indonesians were still holed up in shelters. The reason?

Generation Z (Gen Z) is the first cohort to have Internet technology readily available at a young age and they are inherently tech-savvy. Some of these digital natives are now self-made social media stars, online entrepreneurs and tech experts.

Singapore's new law to combat "fake news" came into effect Wednesday despite criticism from tech giants and activists, who labelled the tough rules a "chilling" attempt to stifle dissent.The law gives government ministers powers to order social media sites to put warnings next to posts authorities deem to be false, and in extreme cases get them taken down.Facebook, Twitter and Google - who have their Asian headquarters in Singapore - were given temporary exemptions fr

Fake news is the biggest concern for millennials in ASEAN when consuming online content, and their reliance on social media is only making matters worse.International communications consultants Ruder Finn surveyed 1,648 people between the ages of 18 to 35 in Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, the Philippines and Vietnam recently, and the research offers valuable insight into consumer preferences across the region with regards to online content.An even mix of male and female participant

Cambodia’s Information Ministry recently warned that it would revoke the licenses of print and online media outlets which distribute fake news that could endanger national security.Phos Sovann, director-general of General Department of Information and Broadcasting, said in a Facebook video post that the ministry will strictly implement laws against fake news, and come down hard on outlets which violate the terms of the licenses or are not registered with the ministry.“All websites operating i

Towards the end of last month, on 21 June, the government of Myanmar ordered mobile phone operators in the country to shut down all Internet data across at least eight townships in Rakhine and one in neighbouring Chin state.

It was recently reported that a Cambodian court had jailed a fixer and translator for two years.

Last month, media freedom advocates praised the surprise release of two Reuters reporters in Myanmar but stressed the pair should never have been jailed in the first place.

In the Philippines – where 76 million Internet users stay online the longest in the world – just a handful of people spend a few hours each day to fight fake news about the upcoming midterm elections.The Commission on Elections has formed a team of 10 government workers to spot and report misleading online posts to Facebook Inc., with whom the poll body has an agreement to quickly take down false information.

On a trip to Ethiopia in the 1990s, I met with Prime Minister Meles Zenawi to try to persuade him to stop jailing journalists. Since Meles’s guerrillas had ousted a repressive Soviet-backed dictatorship a few years before, there had been an explosion of exuberant and sometimes wildly inaccurate little newspapers, many of them attacking Meles.