Myanmar: Digital Content Regulation protected. If the harm to freedom of expression outweighs the benefits, the restriction is not justifiable.11 States often seek to extend rules governing the dissemination of content offline to the digital world. Some such restrictions translate relatively easily and directly into a digital context or require only minor changes. Others, however, require more substantial adaptation due to differences in the ways information is disseminated digitally. Authorities must carefully consider the impact, sometimes unintended, that proposed rules may have on the flow of information over the Internet. This is perhaps particularly important in Myanmar, where poorly drafted or overreaching legislation could potentially create a significant chilling effect, as individuals steer well clear of potential zones of application of the law to avoid any possible risk of censure. In many cases, existing content restrictions are already defined sufficiently flexibly to apply in a digital setting. In such cases, States should not create new restrictions, and especially not restrictions which impose harsher punishments, for the online world. Unfortunately, despite the self-evident truth of this, many States have indeed gone ahead and created unnecessary duplicate crimes for the Internet. Where new content restrictions are indeed necessary due to the different ways that content is disseminated digitally, it is important to define what exactly is prohibited and who exactly is responsible for this very carefully. This is because, due to the wide range of different sorts of online behaviours, it is all too easy to capture innocent or non-harmful activity in rules that are not drafted with an understanding of how people act online. To help prevent this, technical and human rights expertise should be brought to bear on drafting processes, and civil society should be given an opportunity to provide input at an early stage. Two contentious areas of digital regulation are cybercrime and defamation, for both of which Myanmar has already introduced legislation. Cybercrimes take place online but are not necessarily novel. Rather, in many cases they are simply online manifestations of offline criminal behaviour which does not require new legal treatment. While enforcement techniques and approaches may need to be updated in order to cope with evolving behaviour, there is often no need to create new crimes to counter these threats. Too many countries have already followed the emerging trend of seeking to impose extra harsh penalties when crimes are committed online. This is rarely legitimate. The mere use of a digital tool in the commission of a crime does not mean that a more severe punishment is warranted; this would only be the case where the very fact of the crime taking place online somehow made it more harmful or serious. It is legitimate to adopt legislation that protects the reputation of individuals, known as defamation laws, and such laws should apply online as well as offline. However, international human rights law imposes some important conditions on defamation laws. First, defamation ought to be a matter for the civil rather than 11 Ibid., pp. 6-7. -5-