Fake news and the dual threat to free speech: Information disorder and securitisation in the Philippines and Singapore

This article examines how fake news and government responses affect free speech in the Southeast Asian cases of the Philippines and Singapore. It employs the information disorder framework to analyse dis-information production and circulation, and securitisation theory to examine how governments justify anti-fake news legislation. In the Philippines, populist, fragmented politics enabled Rodrigo Duterte's 2016 dis-information campaign, which damaged free speech quality by distorting public debate and undermining shared political realities. Conversely, Singapore's controlled political system has employed anti-fake news legislation – notably the Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act – to institutionalise restrictions on information and suppress dissent, chilling free speech. The article concludes that regime type shapes which threat dominates: in fragmented electoral democracies like the Philippines, information disorder poses the primary threat by degrading the quality of free speech, while in tightly controlled hybrid regimes like Singapore, state securitisation poses the primary threat by constraining its exercise.