Social Media and Southeast Asian Youth’s Solidarity Beyond Borders

Indonesian protesters who recently took to the streets against their government received unlikely material support: food and necessities from delivery applications ordered and funded by overseas supporters. While previous movements and online campaigns have held symbolic importance and facilitated regional dialogue, sending goods via delivery applications represents one of the first significant occasions where individuals from other Southeast Asian countries could direct aid to and materially support protesters in another country without leaving their homes.

At the end of August, large-scale demonstrations erupted across Indonesia. These were initially sparked by public outrage over high salaries and generous perks for legislators, deemed as disproportionate to their lacklustre performance and reflecting broader inequalities. The protests escalated after the death of motorcycle delivery (ojol) driver Affan Kurniawan, who was brutally hit and killed by a mobile police brigade van on 28 August 2025.

To show their sympathy for this protest movement, netizens across the region donated to various organisations and expressed solidarity through hashtags like #SEAblings (a play on “Southeast Asian siblings”). This is a continuation of their use of social media to organise, disseminate information, and rally support in other regional popular movements. For instance, organisers and supporters of the 2020 pro-democracy protests in Thailand and the 2021 Spring Revolution against the Myanmar junta utilised X (previously Twitter), Facebook, and TikTok to effectively mobilise crowds and deliver messages to their countrymen and the rest of the world. This allowed people outside Thailand and Myanmar to express support for the protests, and even led to multinational online movements like the Milk Tea Alliance. Crowdfunding platforms and online donations provided vital channels for overseas support.

The supporters of the latest Indonesian protests took regional online support a step further. Many in Malaysia, the Philippines, and Thailand used delivery applications like Grab and Gojek to order food, first aid kits, and other necessities, instructing ojol drivers to keep the delivered goods and meals, or to distribute them to their communities and those in need. Guides on how to do this were speedily translated into many regional languages, going viral on social media platforms. For instance, one tweet from a Thai user from 30 August had (at the time of writing) garnered at least 78,000 reposts and 74 million impressions, an extremely high engagement (for reference, an average tweet in 2024 had just over 2,000 impressions). Numerous replies to that post confirmed that many had followed it to send food and first aid to Indonesian protesters.

Finally, these demonstrations of cross-border solidarity may boost democratic resilience in the region by shining a spotlight on repression. 

While monetary donations can be difficult to track, ordering food and necessities has an immediate and verifiable impact that allows donors to confirm their help reached intended recipients, again through social media. Delivery drivers and local businesses in Indonesia expressed their gratitude and documented the deliveries’ distribution, demonstrating how technology can unite people across borders.

This innovative form of support was largely coordinated through social media platforms where young people are most active, drawing on their knowledge as digital natives to bypass each application’s location settings to repurpose the delivery apps for cross-border solidarity. This shows that online activism can and does have tangible real-world impact and that social media interactions create broader solidarity across the region. This puts paid to allegations of “slacktivism” among today’s youth.

This development is a concrete one that chimes with findings from a survey by ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute of undergraduate students in six Southeast Asian countries. It was conducted from August to October 2024 and asked about Southeast Asian youths’ expanding regional consciousness (Figure 1). The survey found that online interactions made youth interested in issues outside of their communities, with a majority of respondents reporting that online interaction broadened their interests beyond local concerns. Youth in Indonesia (74.29 per cent) and Malaysia (73.51 per cent) had the highest levels of agreement, closely followed by those in Thailand (70.46 per cent), the Philippines (69.56 per cent), and Singapore (68.65 per cent). Even in Vietnam, where agreement with that sentiment was lowest, nearly two-thirds (62.99 per cent) of respondents felt this way. 

Figure 1. Southeast Asian Youth: Online Interaction and Interest Beyond Local Issues 

In addition, the survey findings show that youth see their online interactions as reinforcing a sense of global connectivity. Figure 2 shows that at least two-thirds of respondents in each country sample agreed or strongly agreed that interacting with people online reminded them that everyone is connected. The level of agreement with the statement, “Interacting with people online reminds me that everyone in the world is connected”, was highest in Indonesia (88.66 per cent), Malaysia (86.36 per cent), and the Philippines (80.63 per cent). For respondents in Singapore (75.20 per cent), Vietnam (69.53 per cent), and Thailand (67.27 per cent), the sentiment was not as strong. This variation may result from regional differences in the degree of political freedom enjoyed by citizens; cross-border connection assumes the presence of a high respect for individual civil liberty.

Figure 2. Southeast Asian Youth Feel Connected Through Online Interaction 

More broadly, fostering community solidarity among Southeast Asian countries is crucial when some regional governments are repressive or fail to meet their commitments to protect and provide for their citizens’ welfare. When certain governments use excessive force, limit civil liberties, or ignore social safety nets, regional solidarity can provide alternative sources of support and protection. Acts of solidarity, whether symbolic or tangible, assist in maintaining movements that demand national accountability and justice, ensuring that oppressed communities are not isolated or ignored. 

Finally, these demonstrations of cross-border solidarity may boost democratic resilience in the region by shining a spotlight on repression. While they do not necessarily inhibit crackdowns on domestic protests by authoritarian governments, cross-border support may increase the perceived cost of repressive action by the state. At the domestic level, such support may prolong the protest, especially if the protest leaders can ensure it remains non-violent. Cross-border solidarity may enlarge national battles in the regional conscience, where people view threats to democracy and human rights as regional challenges rather than isolated national issues. 

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