contributed to “fearmongering” and “misleading”
people about COVID-19.109
Major telecom providers complied with the 2020
blocking orders. Telenor Myanmar initially resisted the
blocking of 67 websites for alleged “fake news,” citing
the lack of a sufficient legal basis.110 The provider later
complied, however, after meeting with MoTC officials
and determining that the “risk involved in not
following the directive as regards fake news is likely to
have wider implications in terms of servicing the
public.”111
B2: အစိ&းရ သိမဟ&
& ့ တ် အစိ&းရမဟ&တ်ေသာ အဖွဲW/ ပ&ဂqိ$လ်များသည် ဥပေဒ၊ အ&ပ်ချ$ပ်ေရး သိမဟ&
& ့ တ် အြခားနည်းလမ်းများ အသံး& ြပ$၍
၁ မ.တ်
ထ&တ်ေဝသ=များ၊ အင်တာနက်ေပ4တွင ် အေ8ကာင်းအရာများ ေဝမn[ိင
& ရ
် န်ေနရာေပးသ= (content host)များ၊ သိမဟ&
& ့ တ်
ဒီဂျစ်တယ်ပ လက်ေဖာင်းများအား အေ8ကာင်းအရာများကိ& ဖျက်ပစ်ေပးရန် အတင်းအကျပ် ြပ$လ&ပ်ပ ါသလား။ (၀-၄ မ.တ)်
B2: Do state or nonstate actors employ legal, administrative, or other means to force publishers, content hosts, or
digital platforms to delete content? (0–4 points)
Pressure to remove content continued to originate
from state and nonstate actors within Myanmar, as well
as from outside the country, throughout the coverage
period. Since the February 2021 coup, pressure from
the military against media outlets, including demands
to cease critical coverage and halt the use of words
translating to “regime” and “junta” (see B5), has led to
the closure of two large media enterprises, with one
opting to take down its entire website.112 It is also
believed that officials have pressured detained users to
delete their own content while in custody. Separately,
content moderation efforts by social media companies
like Facebook, YouTube, and TikTok have led to the
1
removal of content that should be protected under
international human rights standards (see B3).
Prior to the coup, the government employed other
channels to pressure social media platforms and users.
Officials called for content hosts, notably Facebook but
also WhatsApp, to address rampant intolerance,
misinformation, and incitement on their platforms.113
But the government itself had failed to tackle these
problems, and individuals linked to the government
were often alleged to be responsible for perpetrating
them.114
B3: အင်တာနက်[င
. ့် ဒီဂျစ်တယ်အ ေ8ကာင်းအရာများအေပ4 ကန်သ
့ တ်ချက်များ ြပ$လ&ပ်ရာတွင ် ပွငလ
့် င်းြမင်သာမ1၊ ေဖာ်ြပထားသည့်
၀ မ.တ်
ရည်ရွယ်ချက်များ[.င ့် အချိ$းညီမ1 သိမဟ&
& ့ တ် လွတလ
် ပ် စွာ အယ=ခံ၀င်[င
ိ& ေ
် သာ လ&ပ်ငန်းစhများ ကင်းမဲ့ေနပါသလား။ (၀-၄ မ.တ)်
B3: Do restrictions on the internet and digital content lack transparency, proportionality to the stated aims, or an
independent appeals process? (0–4 points)
Score Change: The score declined from 1 to 0 because
directives to restrict content are being issued en masse
without transparency, proportionality, or an avenue for
appeal.
Since the coup, broad restrictions on digital content
have been enforced without transparency and with
gross disproportionality.115 Those who report on the
0
existence of such restrictions have been threatened
with severe consequences.116
Though the government vaguely described the aims of
its restrictions before the coup, the military junta has
generally not. The Telecommunications Law includes a
broad provision giving the MoTC absolute authority to
temporarily block and filter content “for the benefit of
Free Expression Myanmar (FEM) and Freedom House - Freedom of the Net: Myanmar - အင်တာနက်ေပ*တွင် လွတ်လပ်မ/ - ြမန်မာ2ိ4င်ငံ - Page 11