Thailand is proposing that tech companies set up centres in each of the 10 South-east Asian countries to curb the flow of fake news and fake accounts, the country’s telecoms regulator said today.  It is proposing that tech companies set up centres in each of the 10 South-east Asian countries to curb the flow of “fake news” and fake accounts, the country’s telecoms regulator said today.

Such centres would also work as a shortcut for governments to flag misinformation more easily to providers of over-the-top (OTT) service — any digital service done through the internet, including social media — so that they could comply by taking it down faster, said the Thai regulator.

“Thailand has proposed that OTT companies set up a centre to verify news,” said Takorn Tantasith, secretary-general of Thailand’s National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission.