4 - Disinformation as a Response to the “Opposition Playground” in Malaysia

Summary

Malaysia's adoption of disinformation was part of a gradual response by the Barisan Nasional (BN) government to an online space perceived to be dominated by pro-opposition forces. The ruling Barisan Nasional coalition—and by extension, the state—adopted social media as part of its communication strategy in the late 2000s. But it realized that those efforts were not sufficient to win over online sentiment in what was considered the “opposition's playground” (Leong 2019). This turn to disinformation was most evident in the 2013 General Election (GE13) campaign. In the previous general election of 2008, the pervasiveness of new communication technologies, such as online news sites and blogs, was credited as having contributed to Barisan Nasional's loss of its two-thirds majority in Parliament, only the second time this had occurred since the country gained independence in 1957 (Hah 2012; Ndoma and Tumin 2011). As GE13 approached, Barisan Nasional feared similar results, and was fending off strong sentiments of distrust at the establishment pushed by the Bersih social movement calling for free and fair elections.

The wave of anti-Barisan Nasional sentiment among many urban, Peninsula social media users, alongside years of efforts by opposition parties and civil society groups to target the ruling coalition on internet platforms, led to more concerted measures from the state, including turning to disinformation practices (Ding, Koh and Surin 2013; Johns and Cheong 2019; Muhamad 2015). The BN state thus increasingly tried to control the flow of information and communicative practices on the internet, including tightening up media regulation and introduction of new laws, surveillance and threats, and censorship. Furthermore, this period saw the establishment of government-linked “cybertroopers” to counter opposition sentiment. Despite the emergence of cybertroopers, the anti-Barisan Nasional sentiment on social media continued towards the end of the 2010s, amplified by the domestic and international accusation of corruption associated with Prime Minister Najib Razak. At the next general election in 2018 (GE14), Barisan Nasional would lose power for the first time in the nation's history.

Barisan Nasional's disinformation campaigns could not hold up against two decades of the “opposition playground”, bucking the trend in the Southeast Asian region where many elite ruling regimes have remained firmly in power.