5/24/22, 7:45 PM Myanmar: Data on internet blocks and internet outages following military coup | OONI has been experiencing complete internet outages every night (between around 1am to 9am local time). Through OONI data (on the blocking of Wikipedia and social media services), we observe the following: Censorship variance across networks. Internet censorship appears to vary across networks in Myanmar, as we observe different sites being blocked on different networks (and the blocks are not implemented on all networks). Variance in censorship techniques. ISPs in Myanmar are primarily seen to block sites and apps by means of IP blocking and/or DNS based interference. IP blocking. In many cases, we observe the IP blocking of websites and apps across networks in Myanmar. DNS based interference. In some cases, ISPs in Myanmar block sites by means of DNS based interference, returning IP addresses that host block pages (59.153.90.11, 167.172.4.60) or an address in private IP space (such as 127.0.0.1 or 172.29.8.1). We were able to automatically confirm these censorship cases. Non-deterministic censorship. Not all IP blocks appear to be effective. OONI data shows that it is sometimes possible for connections to go through (even though IP blocks appear to be in place), which is likely why we observe inconsistent measurements (in terms of accessibility and blocking). The findings of this study suggest an alarming shift in Myanmar’s internet censorship landscape. In our 2017 study (which examined internet censorship in Myanmar based on the analysis of all OONI measurements collected between 2016-2017), we barely found any internet censorship in the country. Now, the ongoing social media blocks and nightly internet outages raise major human rights concerns, particularly in light of the current political environment. Acknowledgements We thank OONI Probe users in Myanmar for contributing measurements, making this study possible. Global community measuring internet censorship around the world. © 2022 Open Observatory of Network Interference (OONI) Content available under a Creative Commons license. About OONI Probe Updates OONI Install Blog Data Policy Tests Mailing list Data License Source code Slack Contact API https://ooni.org/post/2021-myanmar-internet-blocks-and-outages/ 16/16