Matt Schissler entrenched powers.39 Nonetheless, in the Myanmar context it is certain that these technologies will present a radical shift form the past, as they will offer a mechanism for even the poorest peoples in remote corners of Myanmar to share and access information and ideas that they might not have otherwise, or at least not as quickly. Ultimately, how these technological capabilities impact politics is a product of how they are used. In India, Jeffrey and Doron detail the role new mobile phone technology played in supporting a nascent Dalit political movement as it swept to elected power on the backs of a dedicated party organizing, built phone call by phone call.40 Their research is more instructive as a comparison for Myanmar because of insights on the interactions between a new technology and already established practices and requirements. This interaction was disruptive in India – to gender roles and authority structures, economic practices, and class and political hierarchies. “The new tool accords the possibility of... [using] the technology to save money independently of a spendthrift husband, infect others with commitment to a cause, or communicate with a sweetheart without approval of the family,” Jeffrey and Doron wrote, and it was the cumulative effect of these changed dynamics that had deep reverberations across one of the world’s largest countries.41 What, then, are established methods of communication that might be disrupted – or align particularly powerfully – with new technologies growing in Myanmar? In particular, what alignments might there be that indicate any potential towards those dynamics identified in the US, such as Sunstein’s ‘echo chamber’? The following paragraphs highlight two. The first was reaffirmed for me in discussions following a presentation of some of the early thoughts that motivated this paper, at a conference hosted by the National University of Singapore (NUS) during January 2014. “Don’t you think you may be overplaying this whole Facebook thing?” another participant, an NUS research fellow focused on South Asia, asked following my presentation. “In Pakistan, social media is the least popular method. It is mass SMS messaging that is used to share information.” As we continued this discussion over the lunch break, the Myanmar heads around the table shook vigorously. “Nobody will use mass SMS messaging in Myanmar,” another participant, a Muslim woman who lives in Yangon, told our NUS colleague. “People are afraid to receive such messages, because they could be punished. But it is no crime to log into Facebook. You are simply scrolling down the page, and you see what other people share.” To note that logging into Facebook is no crime is an example of new information technology aligning with older practices that are deeply embedded within Myanmar. Consumption of information on Facebook and other social media platforms is passive. It is a tool one may use to access information while simultaneously maintaining plausible deniability. One may use a fake identity on Facebook, though the company officially prohibits this. Even for those whose social media identities correspond to real identities, one need only scroll down a page where others are sharing potentially illicit information. Others who are willing to share such information and take the risks, do so, or do so with an account that is unattached to any traceable identity. Sharing objectionable material is the crime of the poster, not the passive user who scrolls by. This is a new version an aphorism related by Christina Fink in Living Silence, her 2001 book about life under the authoritarian regime: “We have no mouths, only ears.”42 39 Kikue Hamayotsu, “The Limits of Civil Society in Democratic Indonesia: Media Freedom and Religious Intolerance,” Journal of Contemporary Asia 43, no. 4 (2013): 658–77, doi:10.1080/00472336.2013.780471. 40 Jeffrey and Doron, The Great Indian Phone Book, 146–158. 41 Ibid, 11, 14. 42 Christina Fink, Living Silence: Burma Under the Military Rule (Bankok; Dhaka [Bangladesh]; London; New York: White Lotus ; University Press ; Zed Books : [Distributed in the USA exclusively by Palgrave], 2001), 128. 9/13