Zuckerberg's free speech pivot will abet Southeast Asia's authoritarians

Meta's double standard risks becoming blueprint for a darker, more repressive digital future

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Meta's recent announcement has reignited debates about free speech and content moderation. © AP

Dien Luong is a visiting fellow with the media, technology and society program of the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore and a doctoral student in communications and media at the University of Michigan.

Meta's recent announcement to "dramatically reduce the amount of censorship" by scrapping fact-checkers and recommending more political content has reignited debates about free speech and content moderation. Framing the move as a step toward prioritizing expression, CEO Mark Zuckerberg pointed to what he called "an ever-increasing number of laws, institutionalizing censorship" in Europe and "secret courts" in Latin America as threats to innovation and free discourse.

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