News spread on Facebook and other social media sites before and during the campaign was critical to informing and organising Malaysian voters. Malaysia isn't the only Asian country to be looking for ways to regulate social media. In many Southeast Asian countries, social media, and Facebook in particular, are often the only outlets for censored and marginalised voices. Mr Najib famously labelled Malaysia's 2013 general election the "social media election" and pledged to win the online battle for support. Of course, various forces did try to manipulate social media in the run-up to the vote.

Source: Bangkok Post May 26, 2018 05:26 UTC