11/22/22, 4:37 PM Pro-military death squad rallies openly on social media | Frontier Myanmar immediately in February and had content moderation, I really think these kinds of issues could be easily avoided,” she said. Wai Phyo Myint said Telegram may take down some isolated accounts when pressured by civil society, but she hasn’t seen “any policy changes or proactive action”. “The damage was already done by the time they took down the account,” she said, referring to Han Nyein Oo. Telegram has not responded to numerous requests for comment from Frontier, including for this article. “In the aftermath of the coup, Telegram has become a dangerous new breeding ground for doxxing and incitement to commit violence in Myanmar,” said Ms Emerlynne Gil, Amnesty International’s deputy regional director for research. She said that the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights state that social media companies “have a responsibility to respect human rights wherever they operate”. “Social media platforms must avoid causing or contributing to adverse human rights impacts through their own activities, to address such impacts when they occur, and seek to prevent or mitigate adverse human rights impacts that are directly linked to their operations, products or services,” Gil said. However, the principles have been criticised for having no real enforcement mechanism, leaving it to civil society to pressure social media platforms to meet their obligations. At some point, the Thwe Thout Group channel changed its name to “Bo Talk” and deleted some of the more gruesome posts. Aung Myint said he thought Thwe Thauk members had gone underground because they were afraid of retaliation rather than Telegram regulations. “They have already calmed down a lot. When urban guerrilla groups in Mandalay killed two of their members, even their Telegram channels changed their names and topics,” he said. But on May 21, Bo Talk shared pictures of two more victims: the mother and sister of a PDF fighter from Myaing Township in Magway Region. One of them had a Thwe Thauk lanyard around her neck. Screenshots from Facebook show claimed Thwe Thauk Apwe members making donations to a soldier and Buddhist nationalist monk U Wirathu. (Frontier) Organising on Facebook Facebook began more actively regulating content in Myanmar since 2017, when it was implicated in the spread of dangerous hate speech and disinformation during the violent crackdown on Rohingya Muslims, which has since been declared a genocide by the United States. But Frontier has found that Thwe Thauk Apwe also appears to be turning to Facebook, which is far more widely used in Myanmar, to rally support. On April 25, for example, a Facebook user called Ba Chit posted about the launch of the “Red Operation”. https://www.frontiermyanmar.net/en/pro-military-death-squad-rallies-openly-on-social-media/ 3/9