Call for Contributions : Navigating Digital Power in Asia

Digital power is shaping our societies in profound ways. While state actors and corporations increasingly consolidate control over digital spaces, communities also have the capacity to reclaim and reshape these systems, creating more just and rights-respecting digital futures.

Big- and small-tech are building and expanding their platforms to further monetise, exploit and manipulate us. Governments in Asia continue to enact online regulations with little transparency or public debate, often undermining privacy, freedom of expression, and access to information. Digital government services and platforms are being deployed without adequate safeguards, while the securitisation of disinformation and encryption expands the power of states, military forces, and intelligence agencies to control content, suppress dissent, and monitor citizens. And the convergence of corporate and state interests strengthens digital authoritarianism, limiting the emergence of independent tech alternatives and democratic digital spaces.

But digital power is not only a tool for control—it can also be a force for transformation. People are pushing back, designing alternative infrastructures, and reclaiming autonomy over the technologies that shape their lives. Through decentralisation, open-source innovation, cooperative networks, and grassroots digital movements, a growing resistance is challenging state-corporate digital domination and building systems that foster freedom, dignity, and mutual care.