Listening attentively is a form of respect. It shows care, it keeps us present, and it acknowledges another person’s story. It is also how we come to know each other.

That was the lesson I took from one of the sessions at the Digital Rights in Asia-Pacific Assembly 2026 (DRAPAC26), held in Manila from June 8 to 10, where I represented MCCHR. The assembly, co-hosted by EngageMedia, the Foundation for Media Alternatives, and DAKILA – Philippine Collective for Modern Heroism, brought together more than 600 participants from across the region for more than 60 sessions under the theme “Resilient Digital Futures: Co-creating Collective Resources Across Movements”.

The session was a collaborative storytelling exercise. We were asked to describe our experiences, hopes, and dreams in writing or drawing, in response to a set of guiding questions, and then to share them with the people around us. The exchange was simple, and it made clear to me that listening is not passive. It is a practice of care and solidarity.

I also attended sessions on right-wing conservatism as a coordinated digital ecosystem in Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines, and on child online safety regulation across Asia. The second of these set out the limits of blanket bans and made the case for “safety by design” standards, which address how platforms are built rather than relying on content removal alone.

Across the three days, DRAPAC26 gave room to issues that are pressing but often overlooked, among them the coordinated spread of conservative and anti-rights narratives online, gaps in child online safety regulation, and the narrowing of digital civic space through surveillance and restrictive policy across Asia-Pacific. None of these is Malaysia’s problem alone. Our neighbours face the same questions, shaped by their own demographic and political realities, and that shared ground is what made the assembly valuable.

Digital rights, whether in platform governance, child safety, or civic space, are bound up with democratic accountability, and civil society’s ability to respond depends on capacity, infrastructure, and solidarity. Taking part in DRAPAC26 has sharpened my understanding of the digital rights challenges that bear on our work in Malaysia.