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Social media and the internet continue to be a pivotal part of the modus operandi of extremist networks operating in the country.

As China and the U.S. compete to build digital infrastructure, they are intentionally fostering dependencies that strip away developing nations’ digital sovereignty.

The policy is the latest instance in which Jakarta has flexed its regulatory muscles against the big foreign tech firms.

Communications Minister Fahmi Fadzil's warning comes two weeks after he blamed TikTok for failing to remove defamatory or misleading content from its platform.

The case has been widely seen as a test for how the social media company deals with hate speech and incitement by prominent public figures.

Under rules proposed by the Ministry of Information, ISPs and telecoms operators will be obliged to cut off users and organizations that "commit violations online."

The announcement followed Meta's decision to suspend Prime Minister Hun Sen's Facebook account for breaches of its policies on violence and incitement.

The demand marks a further incremental tightening of the state's control over the online sphere.

The firm's independent Oversight Board said that a January speech by PM Hun Sen, in which he threatened to "beat up" his opponents, violated its policy on violence and incitement.

The decision comes amid a rise in racial and religious online rhetoric as the country moves toward important state elections.

It remains unclear whether these promises can be reconciled with Facebook's attention-driven business model.

Amnesty International claims that Facebook was aware that its algorithms were amplifying harmful anti-Rohingya hate speech in Myanmar, but still did nothing to stop it.

It will soon introduce restrictions on which social media accounts can post news-related content.

The scale of Meta's content removals points to the sheer deluge of hate speech and disinformation that is flowing through the country's social media networks.

U.S. companies – including Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter – are subsidizing Chinese and Russian information warfare by providing free electronic amplification services.

A leading advocacy group claims that the platform's ability to detect Burmese-language hate speech "remains abysmally poor.”

The firm's announcement came a day after a group of Rohingya refugees sued Facebook's parent company for facilitating genocide.

The head of the state communications regulator was fired swiftly after popular social media sites and apps were restricted for failing to comply with data localization laws.

"This process is the same in Kazakhstan as it is for other countries around the world," a Meta spokesman told Reuters.

In giving the Kazakh government direct access to identify content as problematic, Facebook is empowering an autocratic government to further police what its citizens say. 

Internal company documents on India highlight Facebook's constant struggles in quashing abusive content.

In a ruling, the court stated that Facebook’s citing of a privacy provision to withhold the records from Myanmar was “rich with irony.”

The Taliban’s social media presence once again invites a debate on the repercussions of the technology industry’s role in world politics.

Whether or not it is enforceable, the move hints at Hanoi’s desire for tight control over what its citizens say and do online.