This article examines how digital repression tactics—surveillance, prosecution against online activists, and influence campaigns—work in tandem to contain dissent. I applied a mechanism-based approach to analyze interactive patterns of digital repression amidst Thailand’s 2020–2021 protests. These were multidirectional. First, digital surveillance provided the intelligence necessary for targeting key dissidents with charges for their online activism. Second, data gathered through surveillance sharpened narratives of proregime cyber troops to stigmatize protesters. Third, smear campaigns gave a pretext for lawsuits against protesters painted as a national security threat. I argue that these mechanisms leverage and reinforce the intersection of panoptic, punitive and framing powers underpinning digital repression, with panoptic power constituting the bedrock. This article speaks to broader studies on social movement repression: Digital repression allows states to deter and incapacitate movements while avoiding backlashes caused by overt crackdown.
In Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines, observed disparities in Influence Operation campaigns’ aims, organization, and funding are tied to the distinct nature of elite competition, the degree to which ruling elites harness state institutions to suppress opposition and election campaigns
Anti-fake news lawfare is deepening government control over civil society, undermining information integrity and civil society’s democratic rights. Patterns to this legal repression and related pushback strategies in South and Southeast Asia are examined, as the forerunners of global developments.
