On Twitter, international non-governmental organisations working for Rohingya rights, journalists, diaspora and activists expressed outrage and support using #whatshappeninginmyanmar against the military. Journalists working on Myanmar, who lived outside the country, shared live information of military atrocities and amplified the voices of locals. They posted images of the protests taking place in remote areas of various states in Myanmar. May Wong, a senior Indo-China correspondent for Channel News Asia, amplified videos of the military’s seizure of a Yangon-based general hospital refusing to let people, including paramedics, inside.23 Women from various backgrounds and feminist groups on Twitter shared images of threefingers on #sisters2sisters to encourage the international community to stand up against sexual violence and exploitation of Burmese women by the military. 24 Source: Twitter In the next section, we analyse the similarities and differences in the ways Twitter and Facebook were used to sustain the movement. Twitter vs Facebook: Different Feathers of the Same Cap As we can see, there arise several similarities in the ways that Facebook and Twitter have played a role in the CDM. As mentioned earlier, many of the tactics and strategies used by both protestors and the regime have followed the social media-fuelled movements in the past, with local adaptations. While Facebook as a company has played a visible role in supporting the protest movement, Twitter certainly emerged as an alternative platform to protest and garner international support to oppose the military’s actions. There are, however, some differences as well. Twitter, as a platform, functions differently compared to Facebook with respect to user engagement. For example, by using the hashtag 23 24 May Wong (@MayWongCNA), Twitter, 17 July 2021, https://twitter.com/MayWongCNA/status/ 1416424878891175939. Umayma Khan, “The women of Myanmar: ‘Our place is in the revolution’”, Aljazeera, 25 April 2021, https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2021/4/25/women-of-myanmar-stand-resilient-against-the-militarycoup. Accessed on 30 July 2021. 6

Select target paragraph3