further diversified media content and attracted diverse opinions and expressions (Stremlau, Gagliardone, & Price, 2018). This is not to claim that greater collaboration and cooperation under authoritarian regime was not possible in a pre-internet era, however, with state control over mass media, it was extremely difficult. The internet also provides real-time information and internet users are not just passive recipients of information (Ruijgrok, 2016). The rise of the CDM in Myanmar is a classic example of how internet users can translate ideas from an online space into action. Shrinky (2011) endorses the view that assumes that political changes are not possible without the dissemination and adoption of ideas and opinions in the public sphere. As the internet itself is becoming a larger public sphere for exercising FoE, and social media has increasingly been used as a tool for political movements across the world, authoritarian regimes and even democratic governments5 are limiting access to these platforms, and even countering with proregime content of their own. With the growing internet penetration, FoE in cyberspace has also come under threat. Ruijgrok (2016) argues that authoritarian regimes when challenged, actively and strategically engage to prevent the internet from facilitating dissent. The same technological advances and platforms are being used by regimes to suppress FoE. That includes “just-intime” blockings which are typically scheduled before important political events (Deibert , 2015), monitoring populations and effectively targeting leaders of oppositional groups with both digital and non-digital attacks. According to Morozov (2011), through the deployment of modern technologies, activism is closely monitored and suppressed. For instance, in digital authoritarianism, exports of technologies 5 including surveillance software and hardware via private companies has been prevalent in enabling the capacity of regimes to exercise censorship and surveillance in both civilian and military spaces. Through propaganda, regimes attempt to influence public opinion on the internet and justify the legitimacy of the regime and discredit the opposition (Greitens, 2013). For Tkacheva, et al. (2013) styles of repression via the internet varies across non-democratic leadership, and can be categorized along institutional, ideological and pluralistic features. Puddephat (2011) states that where restrictions upon FoE are deemed necessary, the scope of such restrictions have been carefully defined in international human rights laws that include issues such as defamation, incitement to violence and hate speech. Digital communications also attract new forms of censorship and new questions of jurisdiction (through new legislation). Internet shutdown and social media bans, particularly in authoritarian regimes are some of the more common approaches to undermine political and social movements. Online surveillance also acts to restrict FoE and online activities followed by arrests of activists, human rights defenders, and journalists (Momen, 2019). All governments, whether authoritarian or democratic, are incentivized to control the public narrative when in power – to push on with implementing their own agenda. However, in democratic governments, freedoms such as expression, assembly and association are more likely to be enshrined in laws and constitutions and checks and balances on executive power serve to limit the action of executive power. Authoritarian regimes face fewer such barriers. 17