In Myanmar, the junta’s intensified crackdown on street protesters reflects its increasing restrictions on the Internet.
In Myanmar, the junta’s intensified crackdown on street protesters reflects its increasing restrictions on the Internet.
In the early hours of February 1, Myanmar’s military seized power in a coup that sparked months of mass protests. The military junta’s security forces have since killed more than 550 civilians, including children, in a crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators.
In an attempt to quell the protests, the junta imposed increasing restrictions on the internet, which resulted in a complete shutdown on April 2. This made it extremely difficult for people to access information, upload videos of protests, or organize. These tactics have also crippled institutions and limited access to medical information during the coronavirus pandemic.
A spokesman for the Myanmar junta did not return calls seeking comment. At a press conference on March 23, spokesman Zaw Min Tun said the junta had no immediate plans to ease internet restrictions because the violence was being incited online.
Protesters in Myanmar, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told Reuters they feared being cut off from the world, with no way to spread news of protests or military killings outside Myanmar.
“We the people of Myanmar are now in the dark,” said the young protesters. “News from Myanmar will disappear,” added one.
Internet connection
According to digital rights organization Access Now, governments around the world are increasingly using internet restrictions during political crises as a tool to limit freedom of expression and hide human rights abuses. The UN Human Rights Council has condemned such deliberate violations as violations of human rights.
“When the internet shuts down at critical moments like this, we hear or document or see reports of human rights abuses, and that’s what happened in Myanmar,” said Felicia Anthonio, campaigner for Access Now. “The government is cracking down on the protesters so they don’t tell the rest of the world what’s going on.”
After the coup, the junta ordered dozens of telecom companies to shut down. These shutdowns targeted mobile and wireless internet, the only available internet for most of the country.
Facebook shutdown and targeted restrictions
Before the current internet blackout, the Myanmar junta had been steadily adding severe restrictions on how people could use it.
By February 4, all of Myanmar’s major internet providers had blocked access to the social media platform Facebook on orders from the junta. About half of Myanmar’s 54 million people use Facebook, which for many is synonymous with the Internet. By the end of the next day, Twitter and Instagram were also blocked. These platforms have been the main means of organizing protests and sharing information.
Over the next two months, restrictions increased. Since April 2, all mobile data and wireless broadband have been shut down, leaving most of Myanmar’s population disconnected from the internet. Only a few people have access to landline connections.
In addition, Myanmar’s junta has ordered internet providers in at least one city, Bago, to share the identities of fixed broadband subscribers, according to two sources and an official government order reviewed by Reuters. Residents of Kalay city reported that fixed fiber internet is not working on April 5.
Internet compression
Norway’s telecommunications company Telenor published regular updates on the orders it received from the junta until February 14. A Telenor spokeswoman told Reuters that the company had stopped because of the inconvenience to its employees.
Slow internet speed
Even when the internet wasn’t down, the slow speeds made it difficult to use.
Some digital rights groups Reuters spoke to saw the delays as evidence of a government-ordered “shutdown” or deliberate delay. Others have speculated that it could be due to damaged wires or infrastructure strain as a side effect of government restrictions.
For unknown reasons, uploading and downloading large amounts of data during periods of slow speed becomes very difficult, if not impossible. Video sharing and live streaming — two common tactics of protesters — are becoming especially difficult.
Avoidance of restrictions
Despite the junta’s efforts, people in Myanmar have found ways to circumvent many of these restrictions.
Virtual private networks, or VPNs, create a private tunnel between a device and the internet. Any information – such as what websites someone has viewed or what files have been downloaded – is encrypted by the VPN and is unreadable to others along the data path. This means that ISPs cannot tell if you are trying to access a blocked website and will likely allow the information to pass through.
After the coup, the demand for VPNs increased. However, some Myanmar residents told Reuters that they later discovered that some of the VPNs they were using were blocked.
Google VPN searches on the rise in Myanmar
While VPNs can allow access to Facebook or other blocked websites, they don’t work when there’s no internet access, resulting in slow speeds.
Others in Myanmar were able to obtain Thai SIM cards with access to mobile data through telecommunications companies, some of which failed to comply with the shutdown orders. As the latest shutdown approaches, the groups also shared tips for using SMS messages to communicate without radio frequencies, offline apps that work without a data connection, and data services.
“Despite the difficulties, citizen journalists and media are publishing all kinds of information,” journalist Thar Lon Zaung Htet, 37, told Reuters in February. “The key is to show the world what’s going on.”
Visual credits
Opening image: Demonstrators hold placards and cutouts of Aung San Suu Kyi during a protest against the military coup in Yangon, Myanmar | February 15, 2021 | REUTERS/Stringer
Final image: Demonstrators in Yangon, Myanmar, protest the military coup and demand the release of elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi | February 6, 2021 | REUTERS/Stringer
Videos: Obtained by Reuters
Sources
Internet connection and internet speed data provided by Monash IP Observatory, Monash Business School, KASPR Datahaus
Website/platform blocking data collected from NetBlocks.org and Reuters report
VPN information provided by Top10VPN.com
Methodology
KASPR Datahaus measures internet connection and speed hourly in Myanmar using active IP addresses. The sample covers all identifiable IP addresses across Myanmar, except for the most populated area of Yangon, where more than half of the identifiable IP addresses were randomly sampled. It includes mobile data from cell towers, but mostly fixed and wireless internet connections.
Researchers at Monash University’s IP Observatory calculated the expected connection range for each hour based on the number of active connections during uninterrupted service from November 2020 to March 2021. This expected range, which varies depending on the time of day and week, was key. The researchers compared connectivity since the service outages began. They also adjusted the data to account for monthly sampling differences. To show the normal range, Reuters has shown the average high point and the average low point of this expected range.
The researchers used the same five-month period to create a baseline for internet speed. They calculated the expected hourly average ping response time, measured in milliseconds, of all IP addresses in the sample. They normalized the data to account for monthly sampling differences and differences in infrastructure quality. Clocks with an average speed below the expected range were recorded as slow periods.
The times shown in the graphs are local time.
Additional report
Fanny Potkin and Nerijus Adomaitis
Edited by
Matthew Tostevin, Kay Johnson, Janet Roberts and Jon McClure