Proposal

APrIGF 2026 Session Proposal Submission Form
Part 1 - Lead Organizer
Contact Person
Dr. Jeremy Malcolm
Email
Organization / Affiliation (Please state "Individual" if appropriate) *
Center for Online Safety and Liberty
Designation
Chair
Gender
Male
Economy of Residence
Australia
Stakeholder Group
Civil Society
Part 2 - Session Proposal
Session Title
Drawing the Line: Online Harm, Queer Expression, and Platform Governance in Asia-Pacific
Thematic Track of Your Session

  • Option

    • Primary: Digital Resilience and Building of Trust
    • Secondary: Not necessary
Session Format
Panel Discussion (60 minutes)
Where do you plan to organize your session?
Hybrid (with onsite moderator and speakers both online and offline, with online moderator for questions and comments from remote participants)
Specific Issues for Discussion
Across the Asia-Pacific region, governments and online platforms are expanding systems intended to protect children and adults from "online harms", including pornography, AI-generated abuse, obscenity, extremism and disinformation. Yet these frameworks increasingly affect communities and forms of expression far beyond their original targets, often disproportionately impacting health promotion, sex worker and LGBTIQ+ communities, fandom creators, artists, and marginalised users.

This workshop will explore how online safety regulation and platform governance are reshaping freedom of expression and cultural participation across the Asia-Pacific region. The discussion will draw on examples including platform shadowbanning, criminalisation of fictional or artistic expression, censorship of sex ed and LGBTIQ+ content, and the persistence of colonial-era morality laws that continue to influence digital governance in countries across the region.

The session will also introduce and discuss the Drawing the Line Watchlist, a civil society initiative examining how legal systems and platforms distinguish between content involving real victims and forms of fictional, artistic or consensual expression. While child protection and responses to image-based abuse remain critically important goals, the workshop will ask how policymakers can avoid regulatory overreach that collapses these distinctions.

Bringing together perspectives from digital rights advocacy, Internet governance, queer policy advocacy, legal scholarship, and fandom studies, the session will explore how to design proportionate, rights-respecting approaches to online harm. Participants will discuss how different regulatory models across the Asia-Pacific region are influencing platform moderation practices, how marginalised communities experience censorship differently, and what safeguards are needed to preserve privacy, anonymity, cultural participation and freedom of expression while still addressing genuine harms.
Describe the Relevance of Your Session to APrIGF
This session directly contributes to the APrIGF 2026 sub-theme of “Digital Resilience and Building of Trust” by examining how online safety and platform governance frameworks can address genuine harms without undermining freedom of expression, privacy, anonymity, and trust among marginalised Internet users.

Across the Asia-Pacific region, governments and platforms are increasingly responding to crises such as online abuse, AI-generated harmful content, child safety concerns, disinformation, and cybersecurity threats through expanded regulation and automated moderation systems. However, these measures often lack nuance and context in societies where they are implemented and risk producing unintended consequences that weaken trust in digital platforms and institutions, particularly among sex worker and LGBTIQ+ communities, women, fandom creators, and other marginalized groups whose speech and participation are disproportionately affected by censorship, shadowbanning, surveillance, and overbroad enforcement practices.

The session will explore how resilience requires not only technical security, but also social legitimacy and user trust. Internet users are less likely to engage openly online when platforms operate without transparency, when laws blur distinctions between real harm and fictional or consensual expression, or when anonymity and privacy protections are weakened in ways that expose vulnerable communities to surveillance, harassment, or criminalization. The discussion therefore directly engages with the sub-theme’s focus on platform governance, surveillance, child safety, freedom of expression, privacy by design, and the role of digital actors in maintaining an open and trusted Internet ecosystem.
Methodology / Agenda (Please add rows by clicking "+" on the right)
Time frame (e.g. 5 minutes, 20 minutes, should add up to the time limit of your selected session format) Description
10 Opening framing (Jeremy Malcolm)
10 Regional legal/policy analysis (Shambhawi Paudel)
10 Governance/platform analysis (KS Park)
10 Cultural/community impact (Ashley Remminga)
10 Interaction with audience questions and discussion (Jeremy Malcolm facilitating)
10 Final remarks from panelists and next steps
Moderators & Speakers Info (Please complete where possible) - (Required)

  • Moderator (Primary)

    • Name: Jeremy Malcolm
    • Organization: Center for Online Safety and Liberty
    • Designation: Chair
    • Gender: Man
    • Economy / Country of Residence: Australia
    • Stakeholder Group: Civil Society
    • Expected Presence: In-person
    • Status of Confirmation: Confirmed
    • Link of Bio (URL only): https://c4osl.org/team/jeremy-malcolm/

  • Moderator (Facilitator)

    • Stakeholder Group: Select One
    • Expected Presence: Select One
    • Status of Confirmation: Select One

  • Speaker 1

    • Name: Dr KS Park
    • Organization: Open Net Korea
    • Gender: Man
    • Economy / Country of Residence: South Korea
    • Stakeholder Group: Academia
    • Expected Presence: In-person
    • Status of Confirmation: Confirmed
    • Link of Bio (URL only): https://globalnetworkinitiative.org/member/ks-park/

  • Speaker 2

    • Name: Shambhawi Paudel
    • Organization: ILGA Asia
    • Gender: Woman
    • Economy / Country of Residence: Nepal
    • Stakeholder Group: Civil Society
    • Expected Presence: In-person
    • Status of Confirmation: Confirmed
    • Link of Bio (URL only): https://www.ilgaasia.org/shambhawi

  • Speaker 3

    • Name: Mish Pony
    • Organization: Scarlet Alliance
    • Gender: Non-binary
    • Economy / Country of Residence: Australia
    • Stakeholder Group: Civil Society
    • Expected Presence: Online
    • Status of Confirmation: Confirmed
    • Link of Bio (URL only): https://discover.utas.edu.au/Ashley.Remminga

  • Speaker 4

    • Stakeholder Group: Select One
    • Expected Presence: Select One
    • Status of Confirmation: Select One

  • Speaker 5

    • Stakeholder Group: Select One
    • Expected Presence: Select One
    • Status of Confirmation: Select One
Please explain the rationale for choosing each of the above contributors to the session.
Jeremy Malcolm (Center for Online Safety and Liberty) is a digital rights lawyer and lead author of the Drawing the Line Watchlist and Principles, focusing on platform governance, online safety regulation, and freedom of expression.

Shambhawi Paudel (ILGA Asia) researches censorship, indirect laws, and shrinking civic space affecting LGBTIQ+ communities across Asia-Pacific, bringing strong regional human rights expertise.

Dr K.S. Park (Open Net Korea/Korea University) is a leading expert on Internet freedom, intermediary liability, and platform regulation in Asia.

Mish Pony (Scarlet Alliance) is the Chief Executive Officer of the Scarlet Alliance and has over 15 years’ experience advocating for trans, queer and sex worker health and rights.
Has AI been used to develop this proposal?
Yes
How:
Refining the human-drafted draft session description to improve the phrasing
Please declare if you have any potential conflict of interest with the Program Committee 2026.
No
Are you or other session contributors planning to apply for the APrIGF Fellowship Program 2026?
No
Upon evaluation by the Program Committee, your session proposal may only be selected under the condition that you will accept the suggestion of merging with another proposal with similar topics. Please state your preference below:
Yes, I am willing to work with another session proposer on a suggested merger.
Number of Attendees (Please fill in numbers)
    Gender Balance in Moderators/Speakers (Please fill in numbers)
      Consent
      I agree that my data can be submitted to forms.for.asia and processed by APrIGF organizers for the program selection of APrIGF 2026.