The battle for Myanmar performs out on Twitter, TikTok and Telegram

Thinzar Shunlei Yi is likely one of the few pro-democracy activists in Myanmar who’s keen to do on-the-record interviews.
But whereas her identification could also be identified, her location and knowledge are protected by layers of safety protocols.
Even earlier than the coup on February 1, she and plenty of activists have needed to adapt as a way to defend themselves and the data they’re making an attempt to get out of Myanmar from navy censors.
Thinzar Shunlei Yi mentioned she has been focused by on-line assaults prior to now, and that sustaining digital safety has all the time been vital.
Young activists in Myanmar got here of age throughout nearly ten years of semi-democratic rule once they had full entry to the web.
However, the fixed risk of navy surveillance of web knowledge and social media content material has led many individuals to make use of instruments like Virtual Private Network (VPN) apps, encrypted messaging providers and nameless browsers as a way to talk and put up content material with out concern of detection or arrest.
According to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners Burma (AAPPB), a Thailand-based human rights group, greater than 3,600 individuals have been arrested, charged or sentenced since Myanmar’s navy, the Tatmadaw, took energy in February.
Many withstand 20 years in jail for inciting hatred in direction of the navy and three to seven years for stirring up concern or unrest in public. Hundreds extra have been killed.
“People are paying the price almost every day on the street,” mentioned Thinzar Shunlei Yi. “Myanmar people feel that we have nothing more to lose.”
Myanmar’s rising on-line activist military
In the times following the coup, scores of individuals in Myanmar took to social media to share their shock and anger.
In the times that adopted, activists, citizen journalists and anxious residents stepped away from Facebook to platforms like Twitter and TikTok. Many individuals had been cautious of the navy monitoring and spreading false info on Facebook.
Phone calls and textual content messages moved to encrypted messaging providers like Signal or Telegram. When the web was fully blocked, individuals used the phone.
A broader civil disobedience motion quickly went on-line, with platforms used to prepare boycotts and strikes. Activists say they’ll proceed protests towards navy rule, and can use social media to broadcast their message to a global viewers.
“The thing is that with citizen journalists, we are everywhere. We all have our digital devices and we can all still find an internet connection,” mentioned Thinzar Shunlei Yi.
The variety of Twitter customers in Myanmar grew from an estimated 190,000 in December 2020 to 1.2 million in March 2021, in keeping with numbers on StatCounter and DataReportal.
As the protests grew in depth, Twitter was now being crammed with pictures and movies utilizing the hashtag #WhatsHappeningInMyanmar.
Others moved to TikTok and began posting reside and recorded movies of clashes between protesters and police, and tributes to these killed. The hashtag #savemyanmar has been used 1.4 billion occasions on the platform.
Playing cat and mouse with censors
The navy has reacted to the rise in pro-democracy content material by persevering with to disseminate pretend information on Facebook, whereas arresting outstanding social media influencers who dare to talk out.
The navy regime has additionally progressively shut down web entry throughout Myanmar whereas making an attempt to dam entry to social media websites.
Only broadband-based web connections at houses and workplaces stay on-line because the navy tries to maintain the financial system going.
Without cell web, customers take dangers to seek out open Wifi sizzling spots. And nearly all web entry stays blocked at night time.
Michael Hull, the president of the Psiphon Inc, the corporate that makes the censorship circumvention app Psiphon, has been monitoring the scenario in Myanmar.
According to firm knowledge shared with DW, the usage of the Psiphon app elevated from round 6,000 day by day customers simply earlier than the coup to nearly 2 million customers inside 48 hours after the coup.
During the subsequent few weeks, Psiphon was the primary downloaded app in Myanmar as increasingly more individuals wanted the know-how to entry blocked websites.
“This has been a universal response to shutdowns regardless of where people are around the world,” Hull advised DW.
“Populations are capable of not only reacting but communicating to each other the information needed to get people back online,” he added.
Psiphon, which is offered in Burmese, works by encrypting the info coming from the system and permits customers to entry blocked content material – like social media websites – by way of quite a lot of applied sciences and by routing the info by way of a community of servers around the globe.
Even with all of the limitations that at the moment restrict how web may be accessed in Myanmar, Hull mentioned that 600,000 individuals a day are nonetheless utilizing Psiphon to entry blocked websites whereas linked to a wired broadband connection.
“During initial phases, internet service providers that are implementing these shutdowns are not very sophisticated and Psiphon is easily able to circumnavigate any kind of large-scale blocking,” mentioned Hull, including that the corporate screens and adjusts its know-how as censors get extra subtle.
Facing violence at no cost speech
In Myanmar, even having Psiphon or different circumvention apps put in on a smartphone generally is a motive for arrest. There have been experiences of police stopping individuals to examine gadgets.
Protesters at the moment are encouraging one another to go away their telephones at residence or to delete incriminating pictures or apps.
Justice for Myanmar (JFM), a bunch that screens abuses by the navy, accused the Tatmadaw of mass violations of human rights and utilizing the web shutdowns to censor and surveil residents and activists. The group’s personal web site was blocked by the navy in 2020.
“The internet shutdown is causing serious harm to the people of Myanmar, and restricting civil society and independent media,” JFM spokesperson Yadanar Maung advised DW.

Activist Thinzar Shunlei Yi mentioned protesters are discovering inventive technique of getting their content material on-line, and that grassroots actions for change are additionally a cry for assist to the worldwide neighborhood.

“If we don’t act right now, [the Tatmadaw] will inspire many more brutal dictators around the world,” she mentioned. “It is our duty to defend democracy.”