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Myanmar ARTICLE 19 misogynistic content. 209 Pro-military accounts on the platform have spread military disinformation and propaganda and doxxed opponents of the coup, posting their personal information along with violent threats, calls for their arrest, and screenshots of their social media accounts, or posting sexually explicit (often fabricated) images of female activists.210 Telegram, which is famous for its ‘light-touch content moderation’,211 has engaged in little moderation of such content. In response to public pressure, it removed several pro-military channels for violating its terms of service in March 2023, but many other pro-military channels have remained on the platform and there are ongoing problems with doxxing. 212 Overall, military content, including misinformation, hate speech, and violent threats, remains a recurrent problem across online platforms, particularly on Telegram. A Reuters story in November 2021, for example, said that it had identified about 200 military personnel posting misinformation on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and Telegram, with content often duplicated across dozens of copycat accounts within minutes.213 One reason for this is that while companies have announced actions which appear to be notable, taking consistent action to remove problematic content is more challenging. For example, Facebook has perhaps been the most active in responding, likely because it has been more engaged in content moderation in Myanmar since it became infamous as a vehicle for hate speech against the Rohingya in 2018. Its actions have had a real impact, forcing military accounts to relocate to Telegram. However, military-related accounts and speech which violates Meta’s policies are still regularly identified on Facebook, and one civil society organisation has noted that its algorithm appears to be continuing to promote such content when it is not removed.214 Myanmar digital rights activists have been organised in highlighting harmful content and tagging it for platforms, for example by coordinating to report when the military creates new Facebook pages.215 A key challenge for civil society and advocates in Myanmar has been been getting platforms not only to respond but to respond quickly enough, as military actors ____________________________________________ 209 OHCHR, Social Media Companies Must Stand Up to Junta’s Online Terror Campaign. A. Nachemson, Channelling Hate and Disinformation: Myanmar’s Bad Actors Move to Telegram, Frontier Myanmar, 15 September 2021; BNI, How Myanmar Lobbyists Use Telegram to Spread Propaganda, Fake News, 9 June 2022; Mi-Kun, In Myanmar, Telegram Is Used as a Weapon to Destroy Lives, EngageMedia, 26 July 2023. 211 C. Crystal, Facebook, Telegram, and the Struggle against Online Hate Speech, Carnegie Endowment for Peace, 7 September 2023. 212 Nang, Despite Takedowns, Pro-Military Doxing Rampant in Myanmar Telegram Channels, Rappler, 22 August 2023. 213 F. Potkin and W. Lone, ‘Information Combat’: Inside the Fight for Myanmar’s Soul, Reuters, 2 November 2021. 214 Global Witness, Algorithm of Harm: Facebook Amplified Myanmar Military Propaganda Following Coup, 23 June 2021 (note, however, that this conclusion appears to be based on a single test); Associated Press, Hate Speech in Myanmar Continues to Thrive on Facebook, NBC News, 18 November 2021. 215 International Crisis Group, Myanmar’s Military, p. 21. 210 49

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Engaging tech for internet freedom in authoritarian countries

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Information Operation
Internet Restrictions

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Article 19

Date Published: Oct 5, 2024

Abstract: In this report, ARTICLE 19 reviews the human rights context and responsibilities of tech companies operating in 3 authoritarian countries in Asia, namely China, Myanmar, and Vietnam. It focuses on the rights to freedom of expression and privacy, and the manner in which authoritarian states directly or indirectly expect companies to assist them in censoring content, promoting propaganda, accessing user data, and engaging in surveillance. While these are undoubtedly highly challenging contexts, companies have not sufficiently prioritised protecting human rights in their policies and actions. States are the primary duty bearers under international human rights law, but companies also have human rights responsibilities, as outlined in the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs). Even if domestic law or circumstances make it impossible for companies to fully meet their human rights responsibilities, they should take action so as to respect human rights standards to the greatest extent possible. Tech companies should not merely reference local law as an excuse for collaborating in rights violations. They should take steps such as those detailed in this report, like adopting appropriate policies, asking governments to justify content removal requests clearly and specifically, and reporting transparently on their compliance with government demands. For each country, we survey the country context and provide an overview of legal obligations which companies operate under that are problematic from the perspective of international human rights law and that may, as a result, put pressure on companies to become complicit in violations of the rights to freedom of expression and privacy. We then explore how Western tech companies operating in these countries, many of which have explicitly stated their commitment to respecting freedom of expression and privacy, have responded to these legal obligations and to other government expectations that they will cooperate in violations of these rights.

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