could be punished. But it is no crime to log into Facebook. You are simply scrolling down the page, and you see what other people share’. To note that logging into Facebook is no crime is an example of new technology aligning with older practices that are deeply embedded within Myanmar. Information on social media platforms can be consumed by individuals who, though they have held the information in their hand, never have to lay claim to it as such. My Myanmar colleague at NUS was thus indirectly invoking Goffman’s framework for ratified and unratified participants in an exchange, those who are addressed and drawn in to communicating and those who remain outside yet listen in (Goffman 1981: 131–132). Applied to social media in Myanmar, this would mean that one may access information while maintaining the plausible deniability of a bystander, one who overhears communication but is not involved and thus not at risk. On social media this distance may be maintained while the message is nonetheless held close and engaged, with an intimacy and freedom to extend the encounter that is unavailable to a bystander who must position their body close enough to hear and, eventually, decide if they will risk entering into the exchange. It is understandable that SMS messages might be seen as the opposite given that the recipient is addressed directly, their participation ratified – an intimate encounter with information that risks culpability should the exchange face sanction later. One may strengthen plausible deniability further by using fake identities online. Where companies such as Facebook officially seek to require the use of real names, this is only of limited distinguishing value given that people in Myanmar rarely use surnames. Even for those whose social media identities correspond to real identities, one need only scroll down a page where others are sharing potentially illicit information. Others who are willing to share such information and take the risks, do so, or do so with an account that is unattached to any traceable identity. If sharing objectionable material is a crime, it is the crime of the original poster not the user who scrolls by. This is a new version of the aphorism related by Christina Fink in Living Silence, her 2001 book about everyday life during military rule: ‘We have no mouths, only ears’ (Fink 2001: 128).8 Maintaining plausible deniability was then a mechanism for containing and controlling risk; with this maintained, one could push the boundaries of safety and acceptability. Fink describes, for example, a strategy used during the 1980s in which student activists used seemingly innocuous book sharing networks to establish precarious, but no less important, feelings of collective solidarity. After finishing a given text, the reader would add a short comment and the name of their hometown, and then pass on the book. ‘For those who had developed political ideas,’ noted Fink, ‘knowing they had similarly-minded peers in other parts of the country was very important. They often felt isolated among their own schoolmates’. One could glance over the geography of previous readers to feel the presence of a community; but one needed not take risks to do so, beyond possessing a piece of nondescript literature (Fink 2001: 184). In another more overtly political strategy, students distributed pamphlets by placing them in stacks on the top of buses, to be scattered as the vehicles pulled away (Fink 2001: 188). Sharing pamphlets is the crime of the distributor, not the bystander who stoops to pick up an unknown piece of paper. Bystanders may briefly read the message and maintain positioning as unratified and inculpable, unless and until they decide to pocket the message and declare their involvement in the exchange. The same pamphlet may be encountered on Facebook and consumed at leisure, the phone or tablet pocketed without any analogous declaration. 8 For an updated look at the uses of plausible deniability by social activists, see Prasse-Freeman 2012, 388. 6