About Event:

Fake news laws have been weaponised by illiberalautocratic governments in South and Southeast Asia to target critics and opponents, curb civil liberties, and control the flow and content of information. The Anti-Fake News Lawfare AFNL Tracker documents the patterns and trends of such lawfare against journalists, activists, and academics in six representative country cases from South and Southeast Asia – Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Thailand – as well as their countermeasures. The Tracker is based on data-driven research by and field insights of the co-principal investigators of the AFNL Project, GIGA researchers Dr. Janjira Sombatpoonsiri, Dr. Sangeeta Mahapatra, and PD Dr. Andreas Ufen, supported by their local partners Digitally Right Limited, Bangladesh; The Confluence Media, India; SAFEnet, Indonesia; Vera Files, the Philippines; The Penang Institute, Malaysia, and Chulalongkorn University, Thailand. The launch event will introduce the audience to the tracker, with the experts detailing how it can help researchers, policymakers, and civic actors counter digital authoritarianism and ensure government and platform accountability.