strongholds.43 Some of these thugs were mere adolescents dropped at the
outskirts of neighbourhoods where they were directed to make mischief.
Gen Z activists exposed military tactics like these on social media so that
counter tactics might be adapted.44
Yet, as competent as Gen Z are in availing themselves of digital
communication technologies, it is the military that is highly trained in
psychological warfare or PsyOps. It has utilized TikTok in consolidating
its coup d’état in a manner similar to the way that it used Facebook
during the Rohingya persecutions: as a platform promoting military
propaganda, and chaos agents inciting hate speech, violence, the
circulation of disinformation and the dissemination of conspiracies about
vulnerable communities, and also broadcasting propaganda to soldiers
and policemen to remind them that their cause is the national cause. When
Facebook permanently banned Tatmadaw-linked pages and military
personnel and supporters, those users moved to TikTok, where they have
openly operated in defiance of user guidelines—such as when uniformed
army and police display their guns while delivering death threats to
anti-coup protesters. Like Facebook before it, the Chinese-owned TikTok
has been slow to act in halting the amplification of disinformation, hate
speech and the incitement of violence.
CRPH Government in Waiting and the Rise of “Pa-a-pha,”
Semi-Autonomous Administrative Zones
While Gen Z protesters and activists were creating a movement of values,
NLD parliamentary members reorganized as the CRPH—a civilian
government-in-waiting and a channel for UN and international bodies
and foreign governments to continue to provide support and continuity
Generally known as “5,000 [kyat] eaters” (ငါးေထာင္စား in Burmese) among the
public, these people are often hired by the Union Solidarity and Development
Party (USDP) and army supporters to stage anti-NLD rallies, attack anti-military
protesters and use other tactics intended to create social bedlam.
43
A number of these chaos agents were arrested by the ward dwellers. They
confessed that they had received money for these tasks from the military
authorities or the USDP. These confessions were then circulated on social media.
44
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