CYBER THREAT ANALYSIS
Facebook and Facebook-Owned Applications
Reddit
Active use of Facebook in Myanmar has significantly
increased over recent years. In 2014, it was estimated that
there were only 4.7 million active Facebook users in Myanmar,
increasing to 20.2 million users in September 2018, 22.3 million
users in January 2020, and 28.7 million users in January 2021
— a growth of almost 6 million users within the last year. This
growth was likely spurred by the COVID-19 pandemic, which
has halted travel and led users globally to turn to social media
platforms to keep in touch with friends and family. Instagram and
Facebook Messenger had similar growth rates within the last
year, with Instagram growing from 640,000 to 1.4 million users
and Messenger increasing from 11.5 million to 26.9 million users.
Other pro -democracy conversations have also spurred
discussions on forums ,such as Reddit and( to a lesser extent)
4chan and8 chan ,where subreddits such as r/Myanmar and
r/SaveMyanmar have been used to share articles on how to
bypass censorship ,stay safe during riots ,and share videos
and images of the ongoing protests to the rest of the world.
Other items shared include things like Protesting Life Hacks,
which contains 14 PDFs on topics ranging from how to deal with
tear gas ,how to promote events ,first aid resources ,as well as
PDFs detailing items such as the Anarchists Cookbook and how
Egyptian activists organised during Arab Spring .Recently ,there
was a post made in Burmese that detailed the Do’s and Don’ts
of Reddit ,and how to stay safe on the platform ,since the post
Hashtags have also been used by the protesters across
author acknowledged that there was a large migration of users
multiple forums and social media platforms to amplify awareness
from traditional social media sites to other forums.
of their cause. A sampling of these hashtags has been listed
below:
• #whatshappeninginmyanmar
• #respectourvotes
• #civildisobediancemovement
• #freeourleader
• #savemyanmar
• #cybersecuritylawmm
• #rejectmilitarycoup
• #opmyanmar
• #fightfordemocracy
• #opccp
• #stopmilitarycoup
• #everythingwillbeok
• #militarycoupinmyanmar
• #[insertdate]coup
(ex: #mar8coup)
• #milkteaalliance
Telegram and Discord
An examination of Telegram showed a higher user rate, with
an average of over 1,000 users per examined groups. Similarly
to other platforms, the Telegram group was used to share
videos and other daily content related to the protests as well
as resources for those who were within the country and who
wanted to join the protests. We found similar Reddit posts that
detailed how users can set up Telegram to better anonymize
themselves and coordinate protests.
• #freeaungsansukyi
Figure 4: Social media growth between January 2020 and January 2021 (Source: Napoleon Cat)
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