3/4/22, 1:38 PM Managing a digital revolution: cyber security capacity building in Myanmar - Routledge Companion to Global Cyber-Security Strategy media as an instigator of violence between differing ethnic groups, and mainly aimed towards the ethnic Rohingya-minority. The combination of ethnicity, suppression, and digital technologies has come under increased focus lately. Myanmar is one of the most ethnically and culturally diverse countries in the region, with a persistent tension between the Burman central government and the various minorities. The most well-known tension runs between the Buddhist majority, and the ethnic Rohingya Muslim minority. A tension that has been transferred into the cyber realm with a growing number of incidents of hate-speech, as identified by a survey on digital security by the Myanmar Center for Responsible Business (Myanmar Centre for Responsible Business, 2015). A glaring problem in Myanmar’s online world is in this sense the addition of social media to an already combustible ethnic situation. This mixture has already led to violent riots with two casualties as the result of rumors spread online (Calderaro, 2015). Since then hate speech has continued to spread and is becoming an increasingly pressing problem. Most of the hate speech is directed towards the Muslim majority, with a significant part of the hate speech including calls for violence and even killing of Muslims (Ibid.). In 2018 investigations by Reuters journalist Steve Stecklow exposed how the dependence on Facebook for digital communication acted as a driver for the genocide aimed at the Rohingya minority, highlighting the damaging potential digitalization and social media has in tense ethnic conflicts (Stecklow, 2018). Cyber security in Myanmar Contextual factors While leapfrogging into the digital age creates new opportunities and greater connectedness, it also creates challenges and pitfalls. Technological development and progress move fast, while norms and policy production move slowly and create a lag between policy and practice; this has become symptomatic for the digital age. The lag creates a huge gap between political regulation on the one hand and practice on the other, both internationally and nationally. This gap is also pertinent in Myanmar. Interviewees from fieldwork in 2016 and 2017 pointed at the need for cyber security capacity' building within the state institutions; for improving legal regulations and mechanisms; and for awareness campaigns, better https://ebrary.net/173520/political_science/managing_digital_revolution_cyber_security_capacity_building_myanmar#aftercont 5/19