5/23/22, 2:01 AM Internet Filtering in Burma (Myanmar) in 2006-2007 | OpenNet Initiative Info-tech.23 There are reports, however, that many tech-savvy users risk connecting to proxy servers abroad and thereby access the entire Web undetected.24 ONI TESTING RESULTS Testing was conducted on the two ISPs in Myanmar, Myanmar Teleport (MMT) and Myanmar Posts and Telecom (MPT). Both MMT and MPT filtered extensively and focused overwhelmingly on independent media, political reform, and human rights sites relating to Myanmar, as well as free Web-based e-mail services and circumvention tools. Both ISPs blocked roughly the same number of circumvention tools, including Proxify, Guardster, and Anonymizer (although only MPT blocked www.anonymizer.com). In June 2006 Gmail and Gtalk were made inaccessible and Skype was banned25—a reported attempt not only to censor communications but also to preserve the government’s monopoly over telephone and e-mail services as MPT’s revenues dipped.26 ONI testing confirmed that although no search engines (MSN, Google, and so on) were blocked, Yahoo! Mail, Gmail, Hushmail, and mail2web were blocked by both ISPs, while MPT took the precaution of blocking thirteen additional e-mail sites, including Hotmail and Fastmail. Only MPT blocked Skype. In addition to filtering Radio Free Asia (www.rfa.org) and OhmyNews, both MMT and MPT blocked many major independent news sites reporting on Myanmar. This included English language publications such as the Irawaddy, Mizzima News, and BurmaNet News (burmanet.org), as well as sites in the national language (www.burmatoday.net). Only MPT blocked the Voice of America Web sites (http://www.voanews.com/) in English and Burmese, while MMT targeted regional news sites such as the Times of India and Asia Observer. Sites containing content on human rights advocacy and democratic reform continued to be a priority for blocking. A number of nongovernmental organization (NGO) sites with different levels of involvement in Myanmar human rights issues were blocked (Open Society Institute at www.soros.org; http://www.burmacampaign.org.uk/). Within this group were Web sites documenting the persecution of ethnic minorities and the personal Web site of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. Other continuities in blocking included coalitions for democratic change in Myanmar, such as the Web site of the coalition government of the Union of Burma (www.ncgub.net), opposition movements (www.chinforum.org), and rights groups (www.womenofburma.org). There were significant differences in filtering between the two ISPs. Of the sites found to be blocked in Myanmar, less than a third were blocked on both ISPs. The remaining blocked sites were blocked on one ISP or the other, but not both. MMT blocked almost exclusively sites with ties to Myanmar, where the term “Burma” in the URL was one of the common threads among the filtered sites, from human rights groups (www.burmawatch.org; www.hrw.org) critical of the government to peripheral personal sites (such as a site with photographs of Myanmar). MPT filtered many more sites from the global list, blocking a large majority of the pornography Web sites tested, while MMT filtered very few such sites. Several curious results indicated that the Myanmar government does not take an entirely systematic approach to filtering. For example, Amnesty International (www.amnesty.org) was blocked entirely on MPT, but MMT filtered only several Amnesty reports on the country. Other significant variations among the ISPs, including the inconsistent blocking of pornography and gambling sites that suggest distinct filtering methods, are unusual given both ISPs are state-run. CONCLUSION Although Myanmar does not deploy its filtering regime with the same sophistication and breadth as other countries with similarly repressive online environments, the paranoid grip of the SPDC is felt in the restrictions on access, the high cost of services, and the frequently brutal clampdown on information and expression in all other spheres of Burmese life. This may be why there are not many known cases of cyberdissidents in custody, given that people have been arrested for anything from publishing subversive poetry to listening to the BBC or Radio Free Asia in public.27 NOTES 1. U.S. Department of State, Country Reports on Human Rights Practices (2005): Burma, March 8, 2006, http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2005/61603.htm. 2. Summary statement by the Secretary-General of the United Nations on matters of which the Security Council is seized and on the stage reached in their consideration, UN Doc. S/2006/10/Add.36, September 22, 2006. 3. Gen. Than Shwe, 85th Anniversary National Day Message, November 24, 2005, http://www.mofa.gov.mm/news/24nov05.html. 4. Financial Times, “Burma’s privately owned presses are on a roll; Private sector journals are gaining popularity in spite of heavy pressure from state censors,” December 8, 2005. 5. Reporters Without Borders, “Court upholds three-year sentences for journalists who photographed new capital,” June 27, 2006, http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=16898. 6. Xinhua News Agency, “Internet users in Myanmar number nearly 300,000,” November 8, 2006; International Telecommunication Union, World Telecommunication Indicators 2006. https://opennet.net/studies/burma2007 2/3