5/24/22, 7:49 PM Myanmar blocks “fake news” websites amid COVID-19 pandemic | OONI The director general of the Directorate of Communications reportedly stated: “Fake news and disinformation can easily undermine the stability of the state. At this moment, there are so many fake news stories about COVID19 so we have very recently instructed operators [to block them].” While Telenor Myanmar has been transparent about the blocking request, they have not disclosed the 230 blocked URLs yet. Myanmar Now reported that the websites of the Myanmar Times and the Development Media Group (DMG) were blocked without any prior notice on 23rd and 24th March 2020. Similarly, Frontier reported in March 2020 that the government order to block around 50 “fake news” sites included ethnic media outlets, such as Rakhine-based Development Media Group (DMG) and Narinjara. They note that while the Myanmar Press Council recently published a list of online news outlets that allegedly spread disinformation, this list did not include recognised ethnic media outlets like DMG or Narinjara, both of which distribute up-to-date news on what is happening in Rakhine. On April 1st, Burma News International (BNI) also reported that online ethnic media outlets – Narinjara, Development Media Group (DMG), and Karen News – were blocked. These new blockages occur amidst a global pandemic, when access to information is crucial. But as part of efforts to tackle disinformation, the Myanmar government issued directives to telecom operators in Myanmar to block access to websites that are viewed as spreading “fake news”. Neither the directives nor the affected URLs have been publicly disclosed, but recent reported blockages suggest ethnic media outlets are amongst these censored sites. Methodology OONI Probe is free and open source software designed to measure various forms of internet censorship, such as the blocking of websites, instant messaging apps, and circumvention tools. This tool has been run in Myanmar since 2012, and more than 244,700 network measurements have been collected from 31 local networks. We previously analyzed all OONI measurements collected from Myanmar and published a research report in March 2017. At the time, we barely detected the blocking of any websites, and Blue Coat software (previously detected in late 2012) no longer appeared to be present on local tested networks. To examine whether websites have more recently been blocked in Myanmar (particularly in light of the recent blocking directive), we analyzed all OONI measurements collected from Myanmar between 1st January 2020 to 9th April 2020. This analysis involved OONI Probe Web Connectivity measurements collected from the following 6 networks in Myanmar: Telenor Myanmar (AS133385), Golden TMH Telecom (AS135307), Myanma Posts and Telecommunications (AS9988), Telecom International Myanmar (AS136255), RedLink Communications (AS133384), and Frontiir (AS58952). However, as most OONI measurements during this period were primarily gathered from Telenor Myanmar (AS133385) and https://ooni.org/post/2020-myanmar-blocks-websites-amid-covid19/ 3/14