Government media censorship efforts in Southeast Asia
By: Nora Riis
Nov 28, 2022
Free and independent media are vital for democracy. This week’s graph compares governments' attempts to censor media in Southeast Asia in 2011 and 2021.
After the 2021 coup in Myanmar, the military junta eradicated media freedom by banning news outlets and making it impossible for journalists to continue their work. The government in Cambodia also cracked down harshly on independent media in the run-up to the 2018 general election.
The Philippines’ former President Duterte closed down some of the country's largest news outlets. Meanwhile, the Indonesian government exacerbated its indirect censorship efforts through clearly politically linked media networks.
Malaysia stands out as the only country in which media censorship has somewhat subsided and it is also a top democratizer (see V-Dem’s 2022 Democracy Report). Media censorship is antithetical to democracy.
