Paragraph 1: The Viral Shock and the Unthinkable Claim Imagine scrolling through your social media feed and coming across a “breaking news” announcement that seeks to upend the very foundation of your country’s leadership. The headline, framed with the urgent aesthetics of a major news network, claims that the President of Sri Lanka has been clinically diagnosed with not one, but three severe mental health disorders. It sounds like the plot of a political thriller or a malicious smear campaign straight out of a fever dream. This is precisely the scenario that unfolded recently, as a slew of viral social…

Early on Wednesday, in the still-gray light of a Hong Kong morning, officers from the National Security Department moved through the city and arrested two people whose cases are likely to intensify the long argument over how far speech can be policed. The first was Tang Ho-wing, a 37-year-old journalist and founder of Boom News, an online media outlet in a sector that has become increasingly vulnerable. The second was Lee Ying-chi, a dentist and activist. According to a source familiar with the matter, both were taken into custody at around 7am on suspicion of “incitement by spreading disinformation.” The…