The Asia Pacific is the most dynamic digital landscape in the world, home to the fastest adopters of new technology and the largest concentration of mobile and social media users. An escalation in online activism, changing cyber dynamics, developments in digital diplomacy and the exploitation of big data are shaping the region's engagement with the world.
- China has dropped some of the world's largest tech companies, including Apple and Cisco, from its approved state purchases list in a move that has been linked to both Western cyber surveillance and domestic protectionism.
- Fergus Hanson has proposed that the Government instigate a regional ICT response to discredit Islamic State messages in Southeast Asia and Australia. One of his recommendations — an interdisciplinary lab bringing together technologists, communications experts, tech firms and public servants — might be realised via the Government's newly announced body intended to monitor social media and disrupt terrorist propaganda.
- Vietnam's regulatory approach to the internet is increasingly out of step with its booming technology sector.
- The spokesperson for Taiwan's ruling Kuomintang party has used Foreign Policy magazine to urge his own party to turn its fortunes around by changing the way it uses the internet, shifting from thinking about it as simply a communications tool to using it to mobilise support and encourage public participation in policy development.
- Can Tibetans trust Facebook? Prominent Tibetan author Tsering Woeser doesn't think so.
- Based on 2013's Typhoon Yolanda in the Philippines, findings have been published showing how state-of-the-art social media processing methods can be used to assist humanitarian organisations during a crisis. More than 2 million tweets were analysed and geo-located as a part of the project.
- After the People's Liberation Army announced strict guidelines for body weight, including that meeting the guidelines will be a promotion consideration, Chinese netizens turned on Mao Xinyu, the often-mocked and overweight grandson of Mao Zedong, who in 2010 become the youngest Major General in the PLA.