Crowdsourced surveillance
As such, rather than deploying sophisticated social media monitoring tools, our
informants believed that the military tends to flag individuals when their accounts gain
prominence (“becomes popular”) through political commentary on platforms like
Facebook. Journalist #6 cites the case of photojournalist Sai Zaw Thaike, who was
sentenced to 20 years, as an example of someone targeted for being “distinct.” The
data we gathered indicate that Sai Zaw Thaike’s apprehension resulted from a
combination of crowdsourced surveillance and SAC’s manual inspection. His arrest
was preceded by his critical coverage of hardline Buddhist-nationalist rallies that
incited the anger of those groups. His Facebook profile consequently was monitored
and amplified by hardline communities and his journalistic activities were exposed,
leading to his reporting and subsequent targeting by SAC security officers.
This low-tech surveillance seems to be further evidenced by reports of the laborious
attempts of manual astroturfing by SAC security forces on social media, reliance on
citizen reporting through Telegram channels to pinpoint dissidents, and the
publication of a lengthy list of Facebook profiles in a state newspaper, presented
merely as tables—suggesting a basic familiarity with digital publications and mass
surveillance technology. Moreover, the military does not seem to have the
infrastructure to maintain electronic records of national IDs—or, at least, is still in the
process of developing one. As will be discussed in the section "Commonly Shared
Digital Security Practices," journalists (#1, #2, and #6) have addressed the risk to
their identity by obtaining alternative IDs, thereby navigating around the rudimentary
security checks.
Crucial to this low-tech inspection is the human infrastructure of surveillance. The
role of pro-military citizen reporting in bolstering the junta’s inspection capabilities is a
constantly recurring theme among the journalists we interviewed. As Journalist #1
explains,
27