5/24/22, 7:37 PM Global Voices » Myanmar Digital Activists Come Together to Protect People’s Rights Online at #DigitalRightsMM · Global Voi… - Global Voices - https://globalvoices.org - Myanmar Digital Activists Come Together to Protect People's Rights Online at #DigitalRightsMM Posted 30 January 2018 13:42 GMT 1 · Written by Juan Cebu Categories: East Asia, Myanmar (Burma), Censorship, Digital Activism, Freedom of Speech, Governance, Human Rights, Media & Journalism, Advox [1] Photo taken from Phandeeyar's Twitter. Used with permission. Since 2011, Myanmar's mobile penetration rate has soared from 2.5 percent [2] to more than 90 percent [3], bringing millions of citizens online as the country transitioned from military dictatorship to constitutional democracy. The sudden burst of connectivity enabled by market liberalization was met with major challenges: the need to improve digital literacy, a preponderance of online hate speech, prevalent hacking and other cyber attacks. All these issues laid bare the need to protect user privacy, address digital exclusion, and resolve the lack of an effective legal system to protect the rights of Internet users. On January 18 and 19, Myanmar's Yangon City hosted the country's second Digital rights Forum, where citizens were invited to explore and debate these issues in an open setting. This is the second time Myanmar hosted its largest digital rights forum, bringing experts [4] of diverse backgrounds such as corporate leaders, civil society groups, government agencies, tech industry leaders and human rights activists. A local tech hub in Yangon, Phandeeyar [5], took the lead in organizing the forum which was attended [6] by more than 150 people. The organizers were women leaders from different organizations working on technology and policy reform. https://globalvoices.org/2018/01/30/myanmar-digital-activists-come-together-to-protect-peoples-rights-online-at-digitalrightsmm/print/ 1/3